Citi's Chief Economist Recommends a Universal Basic Income

Re:Citi's Chief Economist Recommends a Universal Basic Income by chucksmash on Friday September 04, 2015 @05:51PM (#10173013)

I like the idea of a Universal Basic Income but running the numbers is eye opening:

£1,500 ~= $2,274

$2,274/person/mo * 12 mo/yr * 300,000,000 people = $8,186,400,000,000/yr. $8 trillion a year to provide that level of UBI to all 300,000,000ish Americans.

Not an inconsequential amount of money!

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Re:Citi's Chief Economist Recommends a Universal Basic Income by dman on Friday September 04, 2015 @06:25PM (#10173127)

But if you combine that with a progressive tax rate wont the government take large swathes of that back in the form of taxes?

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Re:Citi's Chief Economist Recommends a Universal Basic Income by ConceptJunkie on Sunday September 06, 2015 @04:06PM (#10178837)

The GDP is something like $14 trillion. We're talking about 60% of the GDP being redistributed. That will work really well... especially when the GDP drops by about a third, which will surely happen.

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Re:Citi's Chief Economist Recommends a Universal Basic Income by dllthomas on Monday September 07, 2015 @02:59AM (#10180388)

"We're talking about 60% of the GDP being redistributed."

When assessing the amount being redistributed, much of what's paid in UBI should be netted against what's collected to pay the UBI.

That is, if I am receiving $27k/yr in UBI, but paying $30k/yr in increased taxes toward the UBI, really only $3k/yr is being "redistributed" from me.

This is still going to be a substantial sum, but quite a bit less than "people * UBI amount".

Please don't take this as my asserting that I think $27k/yr would be sustainable in the US - for the record, I don't.

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Re:Citi's Chief Economist Recommends a Universal Basic Income by kamaal on Friday September 04, 2015 @06:35PM (#10173166)

How much would that be? 40%? That still close to $5 trillion.

How will willingly pay $5 trillion of taxes after all the hard work only to watch everybody else living of their work for free?

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Re:Citi's Chief Economist Recommends a Universal Basic Income by bryanlarsen on Friday September 04, 2015 @06:41PM (#10173177)

Subtract 2 - 3 trillion worth of welfare, unemployment benefits, the minimum wage, social security, etc and it suddenly starts looking feasible. Expensive, yes, but feasible.

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Re:Citi's Chief Economist Recommends a Universal Basic Income by kamaal on Friday September 04, 2015 @07:01PM (#10173229)

Please help me understand this. You promise to pay someone $x, but you will only pay $x-90%(say $y)

The person receiving $y is actually getting it from the very taxes they pay. So essentially what you are giving them is a tax discount. Except in cases where a person makes $0, for which you have social security anyway.

So this is basically a tax discount? You could simply say based on their income some a% of tax discount will be offered every year.

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