[skrowl]

Here's my best argument for why UBI can't work in the USA. Let me know where i went wrong:

My TV told me a "living wage" is at least $15 (but probably higher in liberal controlled areas like NYC / most CA cities / etc due to high cost of living & taxation), but we'll start with $15 to make it easy.

$15/hr at 40hr/week = $31,200 per year.

$31,200 * 328,300,000 population of USA = $10,242,960,000,000

Written out (for emphasis) that's TEN TRILLION TWO HUNDERD FOURTY THREE MILLION DOLLARS. That's just the handouts, not counting in any overhead / administrative costs to give out the handouts. It'll likely be more than that if you adjust it higher than $15 for people living in NYC, etc.

Meanwhile, the entire GDP of the USA is less than 20 Trillion. That's the current GDP where people are incentivized to work, so it would likely go down (perhaps drastically) when people are paid to do nothing under UBI.

Let me know how that adds up.

[sctb]

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18921194 and marked it off-topic.

[skrowl]

That thread was "my best argument for UBI" and my best argument against UBI is off topic? Seems fishy.

[gpm]

I think you could get away with a UBI which is substantially less than that. $12,000/person/year seems like it should be easily sufficient - since I live on that much excepting tuition in downtown Toronto (not cheap), in CAD (so really a lot less), just fine.

Keep in mind that when you are counting per person that means you are allocating that much for people not in the workforce like children too. A 4 person household is getting $50,000/year with the above number.

Expecting people who are just living on a UBI to move somewhere with a low cost of living also seems reasonable to me, I suspect you could substantially slash even the $12,000/person/year number and still have it be sufficient.

I also think that a partial UBI (e.g. $3000/year) would likely be nearly as beneficial as a full one, but it does increase overhead costs because then you can't get rid of the rest of the social services.

(Other people have addressed the fact that a comparison to GDP isn't valid because of taxes).

> not counting in any overhead / administrative costs to give out the handouts.

These costs are negative, in the sense that it allows us to remove the other low income services with much greater overhead.

[skrowl]

That's a good point, the US population of people 18 years or old is ~252 million, so if you only gave people 18+ a UBI handout, you'd cut your costs to 7.862 Trillion dollars per year.

[coldtea]

Also one could remove the UBI part already covered by pensions -- e.g. the millions of government employees getting X pension money, can get (X - UBI) + UBI (so the same as they already get).

[dragonwriter]

That's not a UBI, then, because it's not unconditional.

Also, I suspect the formula you intend is X + max(UBI - X, 0)—or, more simply max(UBI, X). Consider what your formula does for pension < UBI.

[mcguire]

That's going in the right direction, but keep in mind that the entire federal budget is about $4 trillion. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_federal_budget#/...)

A UBI that pays a portion of a living wage might be a very good idea, but it's not going to allow the majority of Americans to lay on their butts all day watching TV and eating cheesy poofs.

[petey283]

Exactly this. And once you get into the 7.862 Trillion range you find that it's much more reasonable.

[est31]

> because then you can't get rid of the rest of the social services.

Some you can get rid of, others you shouldn't. Even if you have UBI, some medical procedure might cost an individual more than they are getting in 10 years. So a proper healthcare system is still important.

[gpm]

That was sloppy wording on my part but the idea stands. "The rest of the social services" should be interpreted as only the social services that serve a similar purpose.

I'm a Canadian and basically think you all need to fix your healthcare system anyways, but for simplicities sake I'll just declare that to not be part of what I meant by the rest.

[_khhm]

Agreed. Even the most zealous socialists aren't suggesting UBI handouts could replace healthcare insurance.

[krapp]

Opponents of UBI, at least in the US, will never accept it on moral and definitely not on socialist grounds - only possibly as a means of cutting Federal expenditure and reducing or deprecating existing social programs, which they disagree with on principle.

If Americans want UBI, they'll either get it with the repeal of the minimum wage, medicare, medicaid, federal student loans and the complete privatization of healthcare - basically the dismantling of the entire social safety net with the exception of programs to aid the military and agriculture - or else opponents will sabotage what futile efforts are made the way they did the ACA, and then work to repeal it as soon as possible.

[nostrebored]

Except your suggestions here ignore that the surplus given by UBI will be amortized into rent and staples costs. It's all well and good until you get into the weeds and realize that a lot of price fixing or pseudo price fixing needs to happen before UBI becomes realistic. If the argument is getting rid of legislative and bureaucratic bloat, it's definitely not quite so easy or quite so effective, choose one.

[bryanlarsen]

Why would you expect inflation to occur?

As long as UBI is payed for via taxes and not deficit spending than the money supply isn't changing. And as economists say, inflation is a monetary phenomenon.

Supply & demand aren't radically changing either. America's poor eat too much, not too little. And while there are homeless people in America, most sleep in shelters.

If anything, you might expect the price of the cheapest staples and crappiest housing to go down as UBI enables the poor to upgrade their food and housing.

[coldtea]

>And while there are homeless people in America, most sleep in shelters.

You'd be surprised.

https://www.npr.org/2012/12/06/166666265/why-some-homeless-c...

[nostrebored]

Money supply isn't the issue here.

If everyone has another x+12,000 dollars, the amount of money available for low income housing has strictly increased. Landlords are then in a position to raise prices proportionally.

The "America's poor eat too much" line is also not strong. You might argue that they eat the wrong things; this is the food desert/education argument that's commonly made. Regardless there is already artificial price fixing of many staple foods like milk and bread, which is a much better argument.

[dllthomas]

> If everyone has another x+12,000 dollars, the amount of money available for low income housing has strictly increased. Landlords are then in a position to raise prices proportionally.

Not really.

First, if landlords go to charge more they are increasing the attractiveness of using housing more efficiently. If everyone is getting an extra $1k/mo and landlords are charging an extra $1k/mo, then I'm saving an extra $500/mo when a friend and I decide to room together. For some people this will make the difference in their decision making, and this will increase the number of available units and put downward pressure on prices. From this dynamic alone, we should still expect prices to rise, but less (and likely much less) than the full amount.

Second, we're not really constrained on "supply of housing" at a national scale. We're constrained on supply of "housing where someone wants to live". "Where someone wants to live" comprises a lot of factors, many differing by the individual, but "sufficiently close to ability to make sufficient income" is usually a big part of it. A UBI directly increases our supply of "housing sufficiently close to ability to make sufficient income" which would now be competing against existing stock.

[idontpost]

> Money supply isn't the issue here. > If everyone has another x+12,000 dollars, the amount of money available for low income housing has strictly increased. Landlords are then in a position to raise prices proportionally.

You're contradicting yourself through sloppy thinking. If everyone has another x+12,000 dollars, the money supply has increased. That's the definition of money supply.

It's also a total strawman and not what UBI proposes to do. For example, my wife and I make about $150,000 combined. UBI would basically do nothing for us because of the taxes we'd pay to support it. If anything we'd have less money, not $12,000 more.

The only people who'd have $12,000 more are the totally unemployed and homeless.

The point of UBI isn't that everyone gets more money, it's that everyone is guaranteed to have the means not to starve or be homeless at a minimum.

People who support UBI (including myself) do so not because they would have more money (as stated, I personally would almost certainly lose money), but because they would have less RISK. That's what UBI really does. It lowers the risk of life choices and gives people the freedom to make choices that otherwise they could not have made.

If I'm one of the lucky (which so far, I have been), UBI does nothing for me. But if tomorrow I'm crippled in a car accident and can no longer work, UBI guarantees a certain minimum standard of living.

[mcguire]

You are correct; the money supply isn't an issue. However, inflation within a localized area of the economy is a thing (e.g. housing prices, health care).

UBI is a transfer of money from the wealthy, who would have used it to buy filet mignon or something, to the poor, who would likely use it to buy food and shelter. One should expect the prices of food and shelter to rise, relative to other products.

[bryanlarsen]

"If everyone has another x+12,000 dollars"

then you have a money supply issue.

[mcguire]

"If anything, you might expect the price of the cheapest staples and crappiest housing to go down as UBI enables the poor to upgrade their food and housing."

You do realize that is self-contradictory, right? More people buying X means the price of X goes up, not down. (Modulo a bunch of factors that probably don't apply to housing and staples.)

[dragonwriter]

People who are too poor to afford popular current housing also having more stable income reducing the risk of renting to them might well make serving that market with units that are less expensive than the minimum on the market profitable, reducing the floor price in private housing markets.

[dragonwriter]

> Expecting people who are just living on a UBI to move somewhere with a low cost of living also seems reasonable to me

Not unless you are providing means-tested relocation assistance (which is against the spirit of UBI), and ignoring that UBI and the associated taxes to fund it will:

(1) reduce CoL in high CoL areas and,

(2) raise CoL in low CoL areas.

And assisted relocation actually magnifies this effect.

[gpm]

No. The cost of relocation is the cost of a bus ticket, suitcase, and a few phone calls, something that $12,000 already easily supports.

The rest of the money people spend is to bring their existing wealth with them, something that society doesn't need to assist with.

[tokyodude]

What will happen with the people who can't manage their money and blow their UBI other things?

[dllthomas]

The same thing that happens now when people who can't manage their money blow their salary on other things, except that it's marginally clearer what the problem is.

[tokyodude]

Right now those people get food stamps and welfare

[jpindar]

Wow, talk about living in a bubble. Do you really think that a person who runs out of money can just go and get more from the government?

[tokyodude]

My sister gets food stamps. Food stamps are for food (generally) where as money is for anything. UBI is often held up by proponents as a replacement for all other support. Given them $1k a month cash instead of whatever they get now. But what they get now is trying to solve a problem not solved by UBI, namely that they can't be responsible for themselves (for whatever reason, physically unable, mentally unable, kids, etc...) UBI doesn't fix that problem so the existing programs will still need to exist.

[hexane360]

hahahah what? Those are directly based on salary, not on "salary after you spend most of it". How would you even implement a system like that?

[softawre]

You'd dole out UBI biweekly or whatever to solve the same problems that food stamps solve? I agree it's a good question though.

[gpm]

One proposal I've heard for this is spreading it over the year, have the government deposit money in a back account once per week (this requires a system where everyone has bank accounts to get UBI, but that shouldn't be too costly).

[jpindar]

There are already benefit programs that distribute money by putting it on a debit card, eliminating the need for a bank account.

[gpm]

Doesn't a debit card require a bank account, at least behind the scenes?

[jpindar]

It doesn't require the person who gets the card to have, or be eligible for, a bank account. You don't need a bank account to use a pre-paid gift card either.

I suppose they would have an account number within the organization that is distributing the money, but that's not quite the same thing, and surely has less overhead.

[CuriousSkeptic]

There was a study somewhere concluding that as little as $500/year could have huge impact.

[dsr_]

Your biases are showing, and that's affecting the quality of your argument.

"liberal controlled areas" is an indicator. People vote for policies that make sense to them. Most people like living in cities, and they like living in places where government provides services that aren't well-distributed by market mechanisms.

Let's go with your $10T number. Then, let's apply a standard progressive income tax, of the kind that has been operating your entire life. Numbers are chosen for convenience and being not too far off from realistic.

At 0 income, you now make $31.2K. No income tax due.

At $7.5K income, such as a $15/hour job you work at for 10 hours a week for 50 weeks, you take in $39K and pay $750 -- a 10% tax bracket.

At $15K income, working that job for 20 hours/week, you take in $46K and pay $1875 in income tax. 7.5K * 0.10 + 7.5K * 0.15

At $30K income, working full-time at minimum wage, you take in $60K and pay 7.5K * 0.10 + 7.5K * 0.15 + 15K * 0.20 = $4875.

At $45K income you take home 75K and pay $4875 + 15K * 0.25 = $6100.

At $60K income you take home 90K and pay $6100 + 15K * 0.33 = $11K.

At $75K income you take home 105K and pay $11K + 25K * 0.5 = $26K, and so you are a net contributor to taxes.

You can set the balance point where you wish: below it, people gain money; above it, people pay more in taxes than they take in from UBI.

While that's going on, you can have smaller government: you no longer need most pensions, most welfare programs, and lots of bureaucracy devoted to finding out whether people should get assistance.

And one more simple change: make income tax calculated by the IRS and you file changes against their preparation, rather than you sitting down and trying to figure everything out each April. Cuts down on frustration and tax avoidance.

[xur17]

> And one more simple change: make income tax calculated by the IRS and you file changes against their preparation, rather than you sitting down and trying to figure everything out each April. Cuts down on frustration and tax avoidance.

Yes please. It drives me crazy that I have to waste time copying numbers between forms for my taxes.

[plinkplonk]

Intuit (and others, I assume) lobbies strongly against this, and spends a lot of money to prevent this happening.

[doubleunplussed]

I can't believe there aren't more responses to you saying this, but obviously you need to increase taxes. UBI advocates need to admit that that is what they are advocating. I certainly am.

...but this increase of taxes would not harm average people, because they would basically receive the same back in UBI as the increase.

Overhead would be lower than administering current welfare payments, since it's universal so they wouldn't need to do any eligibility checks - just making sure you're a real person so that you can't get it twice under multiple names or something.

Other than that it would be break-even for the government, and for the average person. It's just income redistribution. You're taking the money from the wealthy, and giving it to everyone. The average person will receive as much as they pay and will be in the same position as before. The wealthy will pay more in taxes and have less money after tax. The poor will pay less than them and will have more money in the end.

It's not that complicated, and it's not magic. UBI advocates are advocating redistribution large enough to support basic needs. Yes, that means taking money away from the wealthier people in society, but UBI advocates think we can afford this as a society.

[Verdex]

Concerns:

1) People will realize they can work less and still get paid the same. This results in less work than we require getting done.

2) We will still need welfare because some people will spend all of their UBI on non-food items. They will also spend their children's allocation OR trick their children into spending their allocation on non-food items. The option will be to either let children go hungry or create a welfare system that provides only food.

3) It turns out that some people will get bored without jobs and decide that the meaning to their lives is to cause trouble for society at large. Without the need to get up for work they can now stay up until 4am every day finding ways to make life miserable for people who actually do the work that the rest of us rely on. At this point society gets schismed into those who do work and those that don't.

4) In the long term people decide that they don't need education, the ability to socialize with anyone, or the need to participate on any level in a positive fashion towards civilization. We'll have generations of people who only know how to go to the food silos.

5) Maybe there's some problems with actually paying for everything.

[thfuran]

But people aren't paid to do nothing under UBI. They don't lose the pay if they do things. Most people probably won't do nothing because that's boring.

And Counting money is a bit harder than that. When I tip waitstaff, that income for them was my income before that and my employer's income before that and hospitals' income before that and, just maybe, that same waiter's income before that. But if instead it was medicare's money, it got an excellent ROI in terms of GDP output per tax dollar spent.

[RussianCow]

> Most people probably won't do nothing because that's boring.

I think you underestimate the amount of people that are content with not doing anything.

[onetimeusename]

yes, I am surprised this is overlooked. It may be that tech workers who like the idea of UBI imagine working on open source projects. I picture a large percentage of the population choosing to use drugs, drink, play video games, pick up a hobby that doesn't pay, watch TV, or even just do nothing. Then as a result of squandering their time, these people could become permanently unemployable or unskilled and would have to remain on welfare indefinitely.

[SolaceQuantum]

Why would it be bad to pick up a hobby that doesn't pay? I'd love for an explosion of art and philosophy to occur out of UBI.

[onetimeusename]

There is already more art and philosophy than there is a demand for and there is not even a UBI. Increasing the supply of art and philosophy won't change that (to say nothing of the other activities people can choose). I don't want to create an incentive for people to drop out of jobs to spend their time in a worthless activity. By worthless I mean, they have created nothing valuable. It will create a loss of productivity and a decline in skills. Of course, if you do this on your own time and money, have fun.

[SolaceQuantum]

With UBI, people can pursue what makes them happy and enriched in life, not what makes them the most productive. Is that so bad?

[AdrianB1]

With UBI people will stop using drugs because there will be no drug dealers to provide: the drug dealers will enjoy UBI and leave a risky business /s

[Verdex]

The thing is, though, that the people who really do nothing are already doing nothing. They provide zero or negative productivity at work and only do the minimal required to not get fired. Or they bounce from job to job eating up everyone's time.

I'm more concerned with people who decide that they want to do something destructive. Staying up til 4am is possible when the food check comes no matter what. Deciding that you want to ruin someone's life by not letting them sleep ever seems like it could easily become a pastime.

[nekopa]

Except if there is UBI there wouldn't be (or be a need for welfare).

[CuriousSkeptic]

In places where an UBI has been tried economic activity has gone up.

[RussianCow]

Do you have examples? The only trials I'm aware of (Canada and Finland) were not truly universal, and were done on a very small scale on a short time period, so it's hard to really gleam anything from them. I'm hoping Chicago ends up going through with their trial[0], because that will be a much more useful study.

[0]: https://www.businessinsider.com/chicago-considering-trial-fo...

[CuriousSkeptic]

There’s one in Kenya https://basicincome.org/news/2017/03/us-kenya-new-study-publ...

Also concluded ones in Namibia and in India i think

[Verdex]

>Most people probably won't do nothing because that's boring.

I'm really not worried about the people who decide to do nothing (at least not in the first generation of UBI). I'm worried about the people who realize that now they can dress up as clowns and terrorize random people as a full time job because the food is coming regardless of what they do.

[arichard123]

A few points occur to me. It doesn't need to add up that way, as the money goes round in circles. Most people are receiving money and living based upon it in the USA already, so perhaps it's more to with changing how it flows around rather than anything else. It could be phased in slowly.

I think some people like it because it could act as a replacement for so many other government "aid" schemes. Disability allowances, Housing allowances, Health spending could all be cut to zero, as we would know everyone had money to spend on what they liked. Personal responsibility all the way.

Other people like the idea of money for nothing, and well, if we manage to automate everything then we might need money for nothing to keep the wheels turning.

[est31]

In Germany we already have an UBI-like system where people without a job are being paid social security. It's far away from those $30k you mention, and they need to live very frugally, but you are fed, clothed, and won't freeze in winter as you have a place to live.

There are two main differences of this system from true UBI: First, it's only paid to people who don't have any money at all (beyond a couple thousand euros). Any car, flat, house, expensive TV, etc. that you own is subject to that rule and if you possess those, you are required to first sell them.

Second, it's not additional. Once you do make money, your income will only rise if you make more than what you'd have gotten from the social services. This locks in quite many people into this system because even if they would seek employment, maybe what they get in the end is only €100 more than without the social services, but they gotta get up every day at 6 am.

[JoeAltmaier]

Right; that's an example of doing it wrong. Sure it helps people who would be suffering and that's good. But it disincentivises them. It doesn't allow them to save.

[jecxjo]

Its not about disincentivizing them, its about not providing them with applicable skills that would make their production worth more than basic hand outs. It can be demoralizing when you realize that flipping burger is worth $100 a week more than doing absolutely nothing, but we don't live in a world where a burger is worth $40 that would allow them to be paid more. Younger people tend to not have a real concept of money and what it really takes to make it.

What needs to be added along with being paid for existing, is training and potential job opportunities to be setup to get them off of the system. I think that most people in these programs would have no issue being given the ability to work. The major issue with be with people who will object to getting jobs they are "too good for." Hopefully those people are few and far between.

[JoeAltmaier]

Maybe. In a world of increasing automation (explosive in the last 15 years) there's not much value in training for anything less than medicine or engineering. And US has 30 million flipping burgers. When that's automated too, there's not many that could retrain to be engineers. And we don't need 30M more engineers anyway.

That's why UBI is a hot topic. Its a way out of a collapse.

[jecxjo]

> In a world of increasing automation (explosive in the last 15 years) there's not much value in training for anything less than medicine or engineering.

Yes and no. I think a lot of of this automation will mean we will be going back to the world of trade schools where repair becomes a lot more important. Same goes with installation of these automated systems. The US loves to push "shovel ready" construction jobs but we should be focusing more on training for installation and repair of automation.

I've found it kind of odd that we've lost a lot of the trade skills being taught in high school. I'm in my mid 30's and I'm the only person my age I know who took classes in Small Gas Engines, Carpentry, Electrical, Plumbing, etc. From that point a lot of kids went right on to get Journeymen certs and many now own their own businesses. If they would bring those classes back and also teach these types of skills to those underemployed I think you could easily transition into any type of related field.

[astazangasta]

Automation has not been explosive in the last 15 years, I'm not sure why you think this. Productivity growth (the measure of increasing automation) has been the lowest its been in decades, see here: https://www.zerohedge.com/sites/default/files/images/user330...

As for whether we need 30 million engineers, thats entirely up to what we want to be as a society. If you don't think we can come up with engineering work for 30 million people I beg to differ.

[JoeAltmaier]

Not a good measure, because so many are reduced to service industries. Factory automation has been a headlong rush to automation for decades.

We're down 5M factory jobs since 2000, to something like 13M. And the rest are slated to go as automation becomes cheaper. When factories 'come back' from overseas, its only because now automation is even cheaper than foreign labor.

[est31]

This video about how an electric motor is made has almost solely machines doing the work: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zttC2x9nMEw

[mrkstu]

A magnitude lower- its 3 actually:

https://www.statista.com/statistics/196630/number-of-employe...

Less than I would of thought- considering it used to be a rite of passage for many teenagers.

[JoeAltmaier]

That's just fast-food. How about stocker, register operator, shoe store salespeople etc.

[est31]

Yup, that's (part of) why I think that UBI is needed.

[52-6F-62]

I'm not aware of a system that just blanket gives each person ~$30k a year.

In Ontario (before the new government killed it before the study could be completed), the system was going to include a progressive taxation system— essentially, the more you earn, the less you receive in UBI payments, until you are actively paying into the system. The system would have also included the end of our current welfare and disability payment systems— putting less pressure on the bureaucracy and on the people who are in need of assistance. Many people taking part in the study were using the additional help (it was actually around $23k CAD here) to start businesses and go back to school.

It's a little disingenuous to just shout about totals when I don't think anybody [serious, or to be taken seriously] has proposed such a plan.

[skrowl]

Democratic presidential hopeful Andrew Yang is proposing $1000 (regardless of what you earn) for every American over 18. https://www.yang2020.com/what-is-ubi/

Almost all of the Democrat 2020 field (that we know of so far) have come out with some kind of handouts-in-exchange-for-votes platform for their campaign https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/democrats-eye...

It's still early, but I'd expect to see them solidify over some of these types of income redistribution strategies as we near Nov 2020.

[52-6F-62]

That doesn't line up with your former figures or reasoning. It's not a good example.

[strgcmc]

The existing Social Security program costs nearly $1 trillion dollars per year already (okay $900 billion ish) [1].

Sure, Social Security is not like a perfect, shining example, but it can be fixed/improved, and scaling it up by 10x (which is a gross overestimate, as other commenters have pointed out), is nothing to sneeze at. But at the same time, it's not really as ridiculous as your comments wants to paint it (i.e. "omg this is clearly patently absurd, why even entertain this nonsense?").

You've completely glossed over the fact that people generally don't hoard money, especially not those living on $15/hr. People will spend that money, and it could even grow the economy (by GDP). Your little mind experiment is not nearly rigorous enough nor realistic to justify dismissing UBI out of hand.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Security_(United_States...

[bryanlarsen]

Under a viable UBI scheme, a typical middle class worker will see income go up by $15/hr and taxes go up by $15/hr. So the vast bulk of that $10T isn't significant.

[danans]

> $31,200 * 328,300,000 population of USA = $10,242,960,000,000

To start with, 24% of the population are minors, so that knocks a few trillion off that figure.

Secondly, a UBI isn't a living wage, so $15 in today to dollars is not a starting figure, because that is a wage in exchange for work.

UBI is meant to cover the very basics, like a food and varying amounts of housing (depending on the local housing market). For some, it operates as a dividend that helps make ends meet on top of their regular work, especially in high cost areas.

In low cost areas it could function as a living wage, and even cover a significant portion of housing.

[linuxftw]

> UBI is meant to cover the very basics, like a food and varying amounts of housing (depending on the local housing market). For some, it operates as a dividend that helps make ends meet on top of their regular work, especially in high cost areas.

This merely will keep wages low (what currently is happening) by subsidizing poor pay. Many cities have subsidized housing (and/or rent control). The net effect is these people can 'afford' to live in areas while making lower pay. Without subsidized housing, employers would literally have to pay more or rents would have to go down; there wouldn't be anyone able to sustain the rents.

The big difference is, with subsidized housing, society has created a captive poverty tier.

[danans]

> Many cities have subsidized housing (and/or rent control). The net effect is these people can 'afford' to live in areas while making lower pay.

Many wealthy people who live in rent-controlled or property-tax capped housing benefited handsomely from the huge tax break passed by the previous Congress. Some of them have normal income but large inherited wealthbheld in securities like stocks, which also appreciated due to the corporate cuts. They can afford to live in places their income couldn't otherwise support. Your logic applies equally to that situation. You will always find people who you can argue unfairly benefit from a redistribution scheme.

At least with subsidized housing the program is government administered so it can be accounted for when considering UBI.

UBI doesn't erase the reality that some people got a better deal in housing, or life, but for a huge number of people who are scraping by, it helps put a floor under them.

[linuxftw]

Anyone that is a net payer of taxes benefits from a tax cut.

> You will always find people who you can argue unfairly benefit from a redistribution scheme.

A redistribution scheme is inherently unfair.

> At least with subsidized housing the program is government administered so it can be accounted for when considering UBI.

Subsidized housing creates artificial housing demand, raising rents. Without subsidized housing, wages would need to raise in order for people to live in a given location or rents would need to fail. Failing rents make rental units less profitable, thus more people would be able to purchase homes and get out off the rent treadmill entirely.

Solving the affordable housing problem cannot be achieved by subsidizing low wages and high rents.

[asark]

>> You will always find people who you can argue unfairly benefit from a redistribution scheme.

> A redistribution scheme is inherently unfair.

I would love to see what a strong defense of this looks like, that doesn't wind up having all kinds of weird and probably unintended implications. I can't think of one. Best I can do is to define terms such that it becomes tautological.

[danans]

> A redistribution scheme is inherently unfair.

All systems of tax, benefits, and even property rights are redistribution schemes, including the recent tax cut, which was a redistribution upwards in the income/wealth scale. Redistribution is always relative to the previous state of societal wealth and resource distribution. There is no set point of "fairness".

> Subsidized housing creates artificial housing demand

What exactly is "artificial housing demand"? The need for primary housing for poorer people (as fulfilled by subsidized housing) is anything but artificial. You can't fake needing a roof over your head. The only place you can see anything like "artificial" housing demand is at the high end in demand for second homes, investment real estate, and vacation properties.

> Solving the affordable housing problem cannot be achieved by subsidizing low wages and high rents.

Agreed. It can only be solved by building more housing. But the purpose of UBI isn't to solve the affordable housing problem. Society can walk and chew gum at the same time by also building more housing where people want to live, which seems like an equally high a political and economic hurdle as UBI.

UBI could in some cases, however, give some people the means to move away from high housing cost areas to areas where UBI goes a longer way towards providing housing for them. Many people are stuck in high-housing cost areas because that's the only place that job opportunities exist. This is not just true for professional workers, but also for blue collar and lower income workers who are even less able to afford housing in expensive metropolises.

[linuxftw]

> including the recent tax cut, which was a redistribution upwards in the income/wealth scale.

The net result of a tax cut, even if applied unevenly, would be less redistribution, by definition, not more.

> What exactly is "artificial housing demand"?

Supply and demand. Everyone obviously can't afford to pay $1 million in rent per month, thus market rents are substantially lower. Government intervention is creating artificial demand at a higher price point than would otherwise be sustainable.

> Agreed. It can only be solved by building more housing.

Why would a city build more housing when the wealthy control the poor with subsidized housing. They always have a steady stream of income thanks to welfare.

> UBI could in some cases, however, give some people the means to move away from high housing cost areas to areas where UBI goes a longer way towards providing housing for them.

The market has an answer for this. It's just going to raise prices in those more desirable areas.

[ThrowawayR2]

> To start with, 24% of the population are minors, so that knocks a few trillion off that figure.

How does that work? Is the UBI of both parents (or, worse, the single parent) supposed to cover the costs of raising their children for those primarily dependent on UBI?

[seba_dos1]

Why should it? Currently UBI is $0. Is this supposed to cover these costs too?

[jwigg]

That's the total population of the entire US, not the population of people who would be eligible for the full wage. There are a number of demographic groups who would not be eligible for various reasons, eg children (~74M as of 2010 census). That reduction alone is $3 Trillion.

Beyond that, it looks like wages being roughly half of the GDP matches our current setup fairly well: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=2Xa

[delinka]

I'd assume that we would eventually make that distribution as efficient as possible with automation. I'd further assume that any money you make gets channeled through this system so that you have to earn past $30K to see any more money in your account.

nit: ten trillion two hundred forty two billion nine hundred sixty million and no thousands ;-)

How about "over $10.2 trillion"?

[CuriousCosmic]

The issue with your suggestion is that it dis-incentivises work which is one of the problems UBI tries to solve about welfare systems. Currently the issue is "why would I work more than X amount if that means that I make less than if I worked less than that (welfare + work)?" but with your system it becomes "If I am relatively unskilled, why would I try to work at all if that means that I will receive almost no compensation beyond what the government already gives me?".

UBI is supposed to support people so that they can do the work that they believe is most valuable and to prevent people from being dis-incentivised from pursuing work. It has other goals as well such as eliminating other welfare services, removing minimum wage, and incentivising moving away from cities but those first two are the primary reasons.

[delinka]

That's fine. It just makes the distribution system that much more efficient - the same amount for everyone. Then we could afford a flat tax rate for everyone simplifying taxation as well.

[bacro]

two hundred forty TWO billion to be correct :P

[delinka]

fixed - I was going to correct his interpretation, but then decided to spell it all out ... I'm lame

[skrowl]

Good call mate!

[bjourne]

My best counterargument: Who cares about numbers? What everyone needs is food and housing. There is plenty of that for everyone to live comfortable and full-filling lives. The sooner we realize that, the sooner we can work on what really matters which is SAVING THE PLANET for future generations.

[jacobtwotwo]

May I suggest that you alter or drop the "who cares" part? That kind of dismissive rhetorical question will make anyone listening more willing to dismiss what follows out-of-hand as well. I very much agree with the core idea of what you said, but I felt my hackles rise as soon as I read the first sentence and I imagine anyone who actually disagrees won't even bother considering your side after seeing that you seem to not even care to consider their side.

[Verdex]

I'm not sure what your actual position is, but this feels like a better attitude. Let's not worry about making UBI work, but instead let's worry about making sure that everyone has food and shelter. I think using money as a middle man to solve those problems will ultimately be problematic, but I'm not opposed to finding ways to provide what people actually require.

[reidjs]

It’s more challenging that allocate food and housing fairly than money, though.

[alligatorstraw]

I'm not sure if the OP is advocating to abolish money. The supply of money is in some broad sense irrelevant unless there is not enough bills to pass around or we have to carry suitcases of money to purchase toothpicks. What matters is whether there is sufficient goods and services to support the population. Of course, you have to account for changes in behavior in consumption because of inflation and deflation.

[cweagans]

Okay, you've calculated the cost. But people aren't just going to sit on that money. They're going to spend it. Even if they keep their existing jobs, a large population having more disposable income stimulates growth in that area, does it not?

[coldtea]

UBI shouldn't be connected with "making a living in NYC" or whether. It should be enough to cover basic needs, even if it means having to move to a cheaper state.

In that light, something like $10-$12,000 is more like it -- should cover rent, basic food, electricity, and so on. It's to not have homeless, destitute, left behind people, not to cover nice living expenses.

For a family, $10 will be of course $20, and so on. A few friends could pool and stay in the same house with $1000 rent and get $40K between them, etc.

[wj]

Moving is expensive as well. When you hear about families being unable to buy diapers in bulk because they can't save the $50 needed for that and instead buy smaller quantities at twice the cost per diaper you realize that some people simply can't afford to move somewhere cheaper as crazy as that sounds.

[mazlix]

Yeah but with UBI everyone would suddenly have a great source of credit. Who wouldn't loan someone $10k to move at a low interest rate when you know that person by being a US Citizen is receiving $10k/yr.

[atom_arranger]

We could print more money. The inflation will hit people who have a lot of money saved up more than it will hit the people getting UBI.

I'm not sure it's the right option, but it's something to consider. If you have someone below the poverty line and you tell them "I'll give you 30k, but due to inflation each dollar will only be able to buy half of what it can now." I think they'll take that deal.

[mrfredward]

Tax the rich to provide a safety net = Europe

Print money to fund government programs = Venezuela

Historically, was there ever a time that hyperinflation didn't end badly?

[astazangasta]

There are plenty of times where printing money didn't produce hyperinflation. For example, the US pursued a policy called quantitative easing over the last decade which involved dumping trillions of dollars into the coffers of banks; inflation is still sluggish. This is because there are four terms in the equation of exchange: MV=PQ. If you increase M (money), P (price) will only go up if V (the velocity of money) and Q (demand) remain constant. In the US, V was very low and there was a lot of slack in our productive capacity (mostly because construction had overbuilt during the bubble years). The result was no hyperinflation or inflation of any kind.

[alligatorstraw]

I never quite understood why many central banks expand the money supply by purchasing financial assets instead of just handing out money to everyone.

[astazangasta]

Really? Seems pretty obvious - purchasing assets helps their friends in Goldman and Citibank. Handing out money helps the poors. If you were a fat cat banker, what would you do? This, despite the fact that the utility of money is greater for the poors and the stimulatory effect of giving it to them is greater. But if we do that, we are told, we create "moral hazard" because people will think they don't have to pay their debts. Meanwhile we bail out TBTF banks like there is no tomorrow, moral hazard be damned.

[alligatorstraw]

I had vaguely thought that was the reason but I can't seem to find any articles that express that outrage so I thought maybe there was a better reason. Do you know of any? On the other hand, I've found plenty of articles expressing anger at bailing out banks.

[idontpost]

There were a ton of editorials in the NYT and WaPo to that effect a decade ago. I'm sure they're still online, but you'd have to dig through all the editorials from 2008-2010 to find them.

[haldean]

Presumably the UBI would be untaxed, so you can reduce the liveable wage amount by around 30%, right?

[camgunz]

Couple things:

Most UBI proposals don't cover a living wage. They're usually something like $10k/year for all adults, which would come out to $2.5 trillion. Most proposals both cut benefits and raise taxes, so this is very doable.

Second, your example is kind of a socialism strawman, but let's take it to its logical conclusion. The current total income of the US is about $16.4 trillion (after Social Security, etc.). If we were to redistribute that across everyone in the US, that's close to $50k/yr. Considering that the average wage for men is $33k/yr and the average income for women is $19k/yr, that's a huge raise, 52% and 163% respectively.

But that's giving everyone $50k/yr -- from toddlers to the mega rich. If we just include adults, it's closer to $66k/yr. That's a 200% raise for men and 247% raise for women.

Of course, if you have an above average income you're losing money. And there are real questions about what such an egalitarian society and economy looks like. But you would eradicate poverty in the US and solve countless social problems.

Fundamentally, UBI policies are about _redistribution_ of wealth, not additional expenditures as you suggest. Any serious UBI policy proposal takes into account budget and administrative overhead. For example, this [1] proposal from AEI, a conservative think tank.

[1]: https://www.aei.org/publication/a-budget-neutral-universal-b...

[AsyncAwait]

UBI has not been implemented on a large scale anywhere yet, so I give you that, but the USA is hostile even to the most basic social programs, like single payer, because of the 'unfettered capitalism' ideology of many in Washington, which is heavily skewed to the right and does not represent the opinion of the population as a whole, (single payer has majority backing).

Tell me where am wrong on this, because you can't start talking about UBI in the USA, while the political class in the country is super hostile even to the concept of universal healthcare, a policy that is uncontroversial in much of the developed, (even developing!) world.

What about paid sick leave, maternity leave, paternity leave etc.? Here the USA does even worse, since not only does practically every developed and developing country have these, but in fact almost every country has some form of these. If USA is hostile to implementing social policies common in much of the rest of the world, you can't start talking about UBI in any serious manner anyway.

[JoeAltmaier]

UBI not tried yet... Alaska? Social Security? Pensions? The idle rich?

[dragonwriter]

The Alaska Permanent Fund is the only one of those that even hits both of the U and I points of UBI (the rest are just I); it doesn't even target the B, though.

[JoeAltmaier]

Of course they are basic. Many people live on social security, pensions.

And they're a segment of the population. To study the result of a population receiving a BI, there's plenty of data.

[dragonwriter]

> Of course they are basic.

Which of them completely displaces means-tested welfare to provide the support floor for all who are in the eligible population. Social Security doesn't. Pensions don't. Being idly rich might, I suppose, in that that is just “living of capital” but ignoring all the people who don't have a lot to live on.

> And they're a segment of the population. To study the result of a population receiving a BI, there's plenty of data.

Not relevant to UBI there isn't. Some segment of the population receiving income varying a Ross indiciduals based on their past work and investments isn't even loosely similar to the whole population of a community receiving equal unconditional UBI, and there is little reason to expect the former to provide much insight on the latter.

[JoeAltmaier]

and yet folks are studying UBI already by supplying individuals with a basic income and measuring their behavior. Including YC.

You can't of course study the impact on the economy, but you can surely understand how people change with the UBI.

[_khhm]

> because of the 'unfettered capitalism' ideology of many in Washington, which is heavily skewed to the right

I'm going to assume you're not in the USA. Washington DC is over 70% Democrat (which is our left wing party) https://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/news/housing-complex/blo...

Washington DC hasn't elected a Republican (our right wing party, about 6% of the population there) since the 1870s https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_party_strength_in_Wa....

[tom_]

It's probably a figure of speech, not to be taken literally. See, e.g., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metonymy#Places_and_institutio...

[AsyncAwait]

Correct. That's how I meant it.

[AsyncAwait]

> I'm going to assume you're not in the USA.

Am not, but follow the politics there closely.

> Washington DC is over 70% Democrat

Am not talking about the actual place "Washington DC", am talking about it as a seat of power, the seat of government. The politicians in the House and Senate and their leanings.

> which is our left wing party

The Democratic Party is nowhere near "left-wing" by what most of the developed world understands that to mean. The Democratic Party has policies equivalent to the Conservative Party in Britain, (The Conservative Party is a right-wing party).

It is precisely because of the extremely right-wing ideology of most lawmakers in Washington that you have moved to such a position where the center-right, (Democrats), are called "left-wing" and the far-right, (Republicans), are refereed to as "center-right". Only in the USA. You don't have a viable left-wing party over there.

There's people like Bernie Sanders and AOC that are what I'd call center-left, but because how far right the acceptable debate in the USA has shifted, they're "socialists".

[_khhm]

AOC literally refers to herself as a socialist https://www.politico.com/story/2018/07/01/democratic-sociali...

[dragonwriter]

AOC is not part of the dominant faction of the Democratic Party; both major US parties are basically broad coalition, the Republicans basically Right to Far Right (with he latter being currently dominant) while the Democrats are basically Center-Right (dominant) to Center Left. (The “Democratic Socialists” within and aligned with the Democratic Party are more Social Democrats by any non-US standard than actual Socialists.)

There is effectively no real representation of the left, beyond the center-left, in US electoral politics.

[AsyncAwait]

You misunderstood, again.

Yes she does, because she's working within the American context. What I am saying is that she would not be refereed to as"socialist" in much of the rest of the developed world. She is only a "socialist" because of how right-wing the USA political context is.

An easy way you can tell, even as an American, is that she's not advocating for abolishing capitalism and seizing the means of production, which are the central pillars of socialism. She's advocating for some social policies that have been common elsewhere for decades.

[allannienhuis]

I'm no student of politics, so I could well be way off base, but isn't 'abolishing capitalism and seizing the means of production' central pillars of communism, not socialism?

[dragonwriter]

> I'm going to assume you're not in the USA. Washington DC is over 70% Democrat (which is our left wing party)

In American English, in political contexts, “Washington” is a frequently used idiom for “decision-makers in the US Federal Government”. (This applies mutatis mutandis, to the names of political capitals generally, which stand in for the leadership of the government seared their; in the context of discussions of a particular corporation or other organization, this also applies to the names of cities wherein regional or central HQs are related).

Anyone who misses this has really no place commenting that other people must not be American because of ignorance free of the partisan alignment of the electorate in the capital district.

[drcoopster]

> electorate in the capital district

You know they don't have any real federal representation, right? Calling them an electorate when referring to anything other than local DC politics is probably not appropriate.