$3.8 trillion would be about right if you set the benefit level equal to the poverty line for a single-person household, and then gave it to every many, woman, and child in the country, starting at birth, irrespective of citizenship or immigration status, while...
> That's nearly 20% of America's GDP.
...nearly 20% of GDP would be accurate for the benefit level you suggested, if you instituted it at that level today. Anything phased in over time would be lower even when fully phased in, because GDP growth per capita over the long term is more rapid than inflation.
If instead you took the poverty line for the median household size, divided by the median household size, and assigned that as the per person benefit (and still had no citizenship/immigration status test, and no phase in period, you'd drop the cost to about $2.2 trillion, or about double existing combined state/federal welfare spending.)
Any reasonable UBI will also be restricted to those legally present (and quite likely only LPRs, citizens, and nationals of the United States; maybe only citizens and nationals) and not initially start at a full poverty support level (meaning other programs will phase out rather than be big-bang eliminated.)
> Scope. I am of the opinion that one of the beauties of federalism is that policies can be tested first at the state level before we commit our entire nation. Why would a national government do this?
Because without authority for immigration controls, migration for benefits is a problem.
> Necessity. I don't think we need to be paying anyone who makes over 50k (maybe not the right number, but there should be a cutoff). That just takes money away from those who need it.
Means testing is additional bureaucratic cost to serve the same function that can instead be served by tax allocation, and you already need income-verification bureaucracy and income sensitive formulae on the income tax side, so the choice is between two bureaucracies duplicating function and one serving the function. The latter is clearly more efficient. There's going to be an income level beyond which, considering taxes which fund UBI, people get no net UBI payment; you don't need a cutoff in direct UBI benefits to acheive that.
> GDP growth per capita over the long term is more rapid than inflation
At this point, we're down to conjecture. It will doubtless require higher taxes, which will quite possibly counter or outweigh any benefit of more money to spend. It's a big risk to take with the entire country.
> migration for benefits is a problem.
You don't have to have immigration controls, just establish residency requirements with a certain amount of time, holding down a job for however long, etc.
> Means testing is additional bureaucratic cost
Still doesn't make sense to send money to Jeff Bezos.
> Still doesn't make sense to send money to Jeff Bezos.
The cost to send Jeff Bezos $10k/yr is $10k/yr. The cost to NOT send Jeff Bezos $10k/yr might well be higher, because now you need to pay for a system to work out if you should be sending Jeff Bezoz $10k/yr or not.
$3.8 trillion would be about right if you set the benefit level equal to the poverty line for a single-person household, and then gave it to every many, woman, and child in the country, starting at birth, irrespective of citizenship or immigration status, while...
> That's nearly 20% of America's GDP.
...nearly 20% of GDP would be accurate for the benefit level you suggested, if you instituted it at that level today. Anything phased in over time would be lower even when fully phased in, because GDP growth per capita over the long term is more rapid than inflation.
If instead you took the poverty line for the median household size, divided by the median household size, and assigned that as the per person benefit (and still had no citizenship/immigration status test, and no phase in period, you'd drop the cost to about $2.2 trillion, or about double existing combined state/federal welfare spending.)
Any reasonable UBI will also be restricted to those legally present (and quite likely only LPRs, citizens, and nationals of the United States; maybe only citizens and nationals) and not initially start at a full poverty support level (meaning other programs will phase out rather than be big-bang eliminated.)
> Scope. I am of the opinion that one of the beauties of federalism is that policies can be tested first at the state level before we commit our entire nation. Why would a national government do this?
Because without authority for immigration controls, migration for benefits is a problem.
> Necessity. I don't think we need to be paying anyone who makes over 50k (maybe not the right number, but there should be a cutoff). That just takes money away from those who need it.
Means testing is additional bureaucratic cost to serve the same function that can instead be served by tax allocation, and you already need income-verification bureaucracy and income sensitive formulae on the income tax side, so the choice is between two bureaucracies duplicating function and one serving the function. The latter is clearly more efficient. There's going to be an income level beyond which, considering taxes which fund UBI, people get no net UBI payment; you don't need a cutoff in direct UBI benefits to acheive that.
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