[mojzu]

I'm not entirely convinced by UBI yet either, however I think there are arguments that could made against your headline cost calculation.

It could eliminate/save other huge portions of the budget. It would also probably have to be adjusted based on location, or as you said it wouldn't do much good in expensive cities, which might reduce that cost further. And a huge chunk of that money is going to people who will immediately spend it on taxable goods/services which could be a big revenue/jobs boost.

It's still a huge cost though, and while I like the idea from a philosophical standpoint and some of the small scale tests have some promising results. It's still seems like a bit of a blue sky idea that could have some really bad consequences at scale.

[blamestross]

UBI would force them to move away from cities. UBI would inflate housing costs, but more in urban areas and much less in suburban and rural areas. This would allow us to use land more efficiently. Right now poor people have to crowd into cities in hopes of work. It should not be "cost of living" adjusted. We want it to cause a massive re-organization of our society.

[sdunwoody]

Just in terms of the UK budget (as in my example above), the welfare and pensions budget accounts for about £220 billion a year:

https://www.ukpublicspending.co.uk/year_spending_2018UKbt_17...

Let's be generous and round it up to £250 billion, as some other savings might possibly be made in other areas.

The total government spending each year is £842 billion, and the cost of the UBI above (£1,000 a month) is £636 billion.

We're still about £380 billion short ... not far off half the current government budget.

Your point about cities is a good one, but I think this would actually increase the cost. It would be pretty difficult to live on £1,000 a month anywhere, but it would be impossible in some cities (definitely London!).

And while your point on revenue from other sources is valid, as VAT is about 20% here, I imagine the extra returns would be marginal.

Infact, when you consider reduced income taxes through some choosing to cut back on work/not-work, you might see these gains completely negated.

I'm not necessarily saying a UBI is a bad idea in and of itself, but it just seems impossible to implement a decent UBI due to budgetary constraints (it seems unfeasible to me).

You could feasibly pay out a UBI of something like £400 a month if you just replaced the current welfare budget with a UBI, but £400 a month isn't much, and this also ignores the fact that this would massively disadvantage people who were previously reliant on the welfare system for all of their income (perhaps due to inability to work).

[umvi]

> It would also probably have to be adjusted based on location, or as you said it wouldn't do much good in expensive cities, which might reduce that cost further.

Why not just let people move to cheaper places? If they need UBI to survive, NYC is probably not the best place to live.

Otherwise you will have fraud where people have an NYC address so they can collect a large UBI check, but actually live in Oklahoma (or overseas) where their money will go further.