[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.

[idontpost]

And? That's not an argument against UBI. These things have equilibria and rising prices push up supply. The fact that prices may (I emphasize may, because there are other factors at play here that you conveniently ignore) rise doesn't change the utility of raising the floor on standard of living.

I already live a better, more comfortable life than any Roman emperor ever did. We have the means to ensure that no one in our society suffers in destitution, by a vast margin, and that margin increases continuously as automation of menial work proceeds over time.

Not doing so because it might not be "optimally efficient" according to some arbitrary metric is inhuman.

[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.

[flukus]

Anyone unable to be responsible can receive their UBI via a cashless welfare card (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cashless_Welfare_Card) which quarantines where the money can be spent. It deals with issues like problem gamblers and people with substance abuse problems.

[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.