>current programs incentivize people to not do things that increase their income.

At what point do they have "enough" income? At what point can we stop chasing more money? The USA already has a really high average income. Why do we need more?

Think of it this way.

You get a subsidized apartment that’s fixed too 30% of your income so long as you make under 150% the federal poverty level. In 21 that was $12,880 for an individual meaning they would pay $322/mo for rent. I’m virtually every area of the country an apartment at that rent is impossible to find. Should this person really make themself homeless to earn more money doing abullshit job?

This is a welfare cliff and they’re everywhere. Healthcare, insurance, transportation, housing, food, clothing, charity, etc.

The real problem here is a society that is brainwashed into thinking it’s “normal” for a 21 year old to move out and get a place of his own, let alone doing it at minimum wage. I don’t even know why anyone would want to live alone at that age. Everything about life is both easier and more pleasant surrounded by close family.

Housing and meals have natural economies of scale. Even tasks like fetching medicine while you’re sick or waiting for package become easier.

It’s a travesty how many people these days think the standard course of action is to try to live as an island.

Easier and more pleasant isn't a universal. Some people have truly horrible families. Occasionally they themselves are the horrible family member, and the others are so much better off without them around.

> thinking it’s “normal” for a 21 year old to move out and get a place of his own, let alone doing it at minimum wage.

Well, parents aren't legally obligated to provide support past age 18, which means many don't. And youths that are wards of the state because of abuse or their parents becoming incarcerated, dying, etc, are not supported beyond age 18. So this is at least a frequent corner case we'll have to deal with, even if social norms change so that more parents support kids past 18.

> At what point do they have "enough" income?

If you require public assistance for housing and food, I think you don't have enough income.

But public benefits can phase out, leaving you in an awkward place where you have more income but less household resources and become unable to feed your family by virtue of making more.

>If you require public assistance for housing and food, I think you don't have enough income.

Public assistance? Like UBI?

By using your definition, it is BETTER if we stop giving people money. I'm pretty sure that is not the intended direction

> Public assistance? Like UBI?

I think it's important that to whatever extent we decide that some people need assistance, that we do it in a way that doesn't have a cliff and preferably doesn't have any phase-out at all, for the reasons I described.

Yes, the assistance is still economically distortive, but less so than otherwise. Everyone still has an incentive to increase their income and economic output.

This idea came to me from none other than Milton Friedman, in the form of the negative income tax.

When the top 1% makes more income than the entire bottom 50% that average can look pretty skewed.

If you are going to compare income of different people, can you please indicate the geographical region you pick, and how you decided on the size?

For instance, the income distribution of people within Beverly Hills is probably pretty OK - no need to redistribute anything there!

But if you zoom out, you can look at the entire world and realize that the poorest of the USA are richer than many people around the world and should pay their welfare

Since we are speaking about the US, the numbers I provided were us specific and anything that is done would be financed via us taxes, I'm pretty confident everyone knows I'm referring to the US as a whole.

"realize that the poorest of the USA are richer than many people around the world and should pay their welfare"

Why should us taxes subsidize world welfare (not that it already doesn't)?

Of course, when we're talking about a UBI, there are always some geographic distributions of wealth that one might quibble with: from large urban states to rural states. Taxes paying for UBI flowing out of California will exceed UBI flowing into California; taxes paying for UBI flowing out of Wyoming will be dwarfed by UBI flowing into Wyoming.

And, further, beyond the balance of transfers in absolute dollars-- $1000/mo in California impacts resident life less than $1000/mo in Wyoming.

I don't think this is a strong reason to not do UBI, but it's a confound.

would be interesting to see if a UBI actually caused more people to move to states like Wyoming and Montana. Many people too poor to actually move (lack of deposit, moving costs, etc.) would actually have the funds to move if they saved ubi for a few months. Leaving a HCOL for a LCOL state with a UBI would be a life changer for people if they were willing to do so.

As a US citizen, I feel my first duty is to my country. There are enough problems at home without trying to fix the world.

The USA also has really high living expenses.

Besides which, the median is a much better measure than average.

I want the standard of living to increase. What is hard to understand about that?

One would have to be extremely credible to believe the claim that UBI would remove deadweight loss. Throwing any kind of massive wrench in the market can safely be expected to introduce it.

If UBI proponents ran on the platform of "eliminate all welfare and replace it with UBI" I would probably support them. But they don't, and they won't, because that's not politically tenable. I don't see a patronage angle where you can buy anyone's votes with that scheme, so it's never going to happen.

> One would have to be extremely credible to believe the claim that UBI would remove deadweight loss. Throwing any kind of massive wrench in the market can safely be expected to introduce it.

We already have the massive wrench in the form of benefits programs and EITC, etc. I say: restructure them to be UBI instead.

Milton Friedman advocated for a negative income tax which is much like a UBI, and most economists agree that giving out welfare in this means-tested way is extremely distortive. Maybe all these economists are "extremely credible": https://mitsloan.mit.edu/ideas-made-to-matter/negative-incom....

> If UBI proponents ran on the platform of "eliminate all welfare and replace it with UBI" I would probably support them.

I favor not quite this. I favor "eliminate most welfare and replace it with UBI". It will cost more, but it will also benefit a larger slice of people.

The proposals from the farthest left generally have UBI mutually exclusionary with receiving other benefits (from Yang et al.). So even there, we're talking about mostly eliminating other welfare.

In any case: refusing to discuss good ideas because we don't think they'll be politically tenable is a recipe for them to remain politically untenable forever.

I agree that UBI would be less distortive per dollar than what we have now, but unless there's a credibles strategy to make this happen, why bother discussing it? I suspect it's a pipe dream. Politics is a gang fight; any pretense of social optimization is just a thin veneer. Whose votes can you buy with the promise of UBI replacing extant welfare schemes? Every extant welfare scheme is a vote buying program which you're now nuking.

Even Yang proposed making UBI mutually contradictory with receiving other benefits.

> Every extant welfare scheme is a vote buying program which you're now nuking.

While some peoples' votes will be bought with welfare money, others will support it because they don't think it's OK to let the poor starve or don't want the poor to riot. E.g. me: I don't receive public assistance. I think welfare programs are necessary (though it's better if most of them are implemented in the form of a UBI).

Your well-intentioned vote isn't enough to eliminate the system we have now. Getting the welfare schemes we have now in place took both credulous moral voters and the voting blocs who constitute the self-interested recipients of these welfare schemes. The recipients of the current schemes are never going to vote to get rid of the current schemes. They would net fare worse under a more efficient scheme. So who are you going to team up with to get the votes?

> They would net fare worse under a more efficient scheme.

If I were such a person, I would prefer UBI cash to welfare with strings.

Are you saying you'd prefer to receive benefits in-kind as e.g. housing assistance instead of cash?

Don't conflate "more economically efficient" with "gives recipients less".

I am very confident that the modal welfare voter would prefer the current system, which was specifically designed to buy their vote, to any system which appeals to utilitarian-minded technocrats and costs within a factor of 2 of the current system.

Without justification.

Look, well-minding paternalistic peeps are behind the current system of "you can only buy some kinds of food with SNAP" and "you must spend this particular money with only certain providers of housing!" It's not the benefit recipient demanding that they be restricted in how they spend their benefits.

Less strings on the money is A) cheaper, and B) nicer for the recipient. I have no doubt that if you offered any poor person the choice between $600 in cash each month and $600 of section 8 credits, they'd take the former.

But, you know, you might deal with someone spending it all on crack (which is why we currently restrict the usage of funds). At least it'll be economically efficient, instead of them selling their SNAP card for crack for 50 cents on the dollar, like is the current outcome.

The cost of administering that $600 monthly award is way above $zero.

It takes entire agencies scores of hours to receive, verify, investigate and cure deficient applications, handle appeals, and execute wage garnishment orders due to their own overpayment/accounting errors -- not to mention approvals.

"Oh we just figured out you made too much money 5 months ago. Sorry bub, you gotta pay back The State the past 5mo of benefits, and re-apply" (with a 90 day waiting period... && Watch out kid, next time this happens it'll be a 180day wait.)

After that's done, they then turn around and do it all again every 6 months because they're forced to re-collect(and vet/process/cure) the same information again via a mandatory "beneficiary 6mo survey".

> The cost of administering that $600 monthly award is way above $zero. It takes entire agencies scores of hours to receive, verify, investigate and cure deficient applications, handle appeals, and execute wage garnishment orders due to their own overpayment/accounting errors -- not to mention approvals.

Sure-- not sure if you're agreeing with me or arguing? It is more costly to give aid with strings attached and complicated qualification requirements, and it is worth less to the recipients.

[Not to mention the costs that this bureaucracy imposes on the recipients. Time that they spend jumping through hoops in a bureaucracy is time and attention they can't spend on bettering their situation].