The most common evasion is in the handwaving around the size of the proposed UBI check. Total US tax revenue per person comes out to just over $20000/year, that's $1666/month (in comparison, a 40 hour workweek at the federal minimum wage of $7.25/hr, no holidays, comes out at $15080/year or $1256/month).

If you abolished every single government program and fire every single government employee, right from the DoD down to your local playground, from congress to the schools, never mind every single existing welfare program, assuming that tax revenue somehow managed to stay at the same level, what with no IRS to collect it and 22 million newly unemployed public sector workers, you could barely afford to pay a UBI at the minimum wage, never mind attending to the people who might legitimately need more help (also, no roads or schools).

UBI is either going to require cuts of a depth never proposed, much less enacted, in any western country, ever -- or be too small (perhaps a hundred dollars a month) to live up to its promises.

Or you raise taxes for the rich 1%.

The top 1% of americans are about 3 million people and have an average income of 1 million. They already account for just short of half of all income taxes.

Every time you want to raise enough revenue to give the 99% another $1,200 ($100/month), you need to raise taxes on each single member of the 1% by $120,000. And that's on average incomes of a million.

Don't forget lots of incorrect assumptions about human nature, namely that there won't be a large, permanent underclass created by BI and that the people actually paying for BI will be more than happy to do so.

> Don't forget lots of incorrect assumptions about human nature, namely that there won't be a large, permanent underclass created by BI and that the people actually paying for BI will be more than happy to do so.

I think almost everyone would want to work on $13-$15k a year. However, they'd work part time.

And tbh, for our current welfare system, that is essentially what happens already. They work minimum wage jobs, part time, on call.

I don't think there's even a common model, yet. Some are designed only to benefit the poor, like negative income tax rates.

It's kind of silly to discuss the details when there aren't any. People need to be open to giving cash to the poor to even begin thinking about how best to implement it, and the US at least has been going in the opposite direction since the original Clinton welfare reform, which emphasizes employment assistance over direct monetary assistance, with mixed results.

I do not agree. Understanding of and agreement on the details makes it possible for people to be open to such a broad idea. Currently, the details are discouraging, so it makes sense for proponents to downplay them, but in the long run, they will have more success solving the prerequisites and working their way up. My opinion is that a career in robotics is the most effective way of solving those prerequisites.

Well, I would investigate negative income tax. I don't know what the current state of the UBI lobby looks like, but there are certainly flavors of UBI that are much more efficient at allocating funds where they are needed most. Negative income tax is just one flavor of the more nuanced strategies. I certainly don't think routing some percentage of money into the governments coffers just to pay out again to the same people paying it would be an attractive option, and that seems like what you're describing. I believe that is by far the least efficient model I've seen.

Personally, I think it's throwing money away without also addressing healthcare costs, including nutritional reform. Sugar is only cheap when you ignore the costs of obesity we all bear in increased premiums. This is the only way of which I can conceive to implement some form of cash relief without cutting into benefits.