Re:Universal Basic Income Is Not Feasible
by rayiner on Thursday April 26, 2018 @07:44PM
(#16937084)
> A UBI that pays every American $10,000 a year would cost about $3 trillion, Smetters says.
That's assuming you provide UBI on top of Social Security. You can reduce the real cost to about $2.1 trillion by making people pick one or the other. And you can raise $2.1 trillion by raising U.S. taxes as percentage of GDP to roughly the level of the Netherlands. Even if you assume GDP will contract somewhat, you can probably do it without raising taxes above that of France.
That's assuming you provide UBI on top of Social Security. You can reduce the real cost to about $2.1 trillion by making people pick one or the other. And you can raise $2.1 trillion by raising U.S. taxes as percentage of GDP to roughly the level of the Netherlands. Even if you assume GDP will contract somewhat, you can probably do it without raising taxes above that of France.