Warning: Ballpark numbers ahead

The 2022 budget was $1.2T across all welfare programs[0]. This includes programs people don't normally consider welfare such as the Child Tax Credit and parts of the Pell Grant.

There are currently 350M people in the USA [1]. $1.2T / 350M People is $3,428/person/year. Please note that while significantly less, there will still be some overhead in the UBI program so the actual number is lower.

This also doesn't include state budgets for welfare.

[0] https://budget.house.gov/press-release/7582

[1] https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/us-population...

Meanwhile, the median social security recipient gets about $1,700 per month. I don't think most people are going to get behind a "Rob grandma's pension so a bunch of college socialists can write poetry instead of working (and even then actually can't because they're bad at math)" program.

Social security is another $1.4T/year budget that is not considered welfare [0]. Medicare is another $0.9B [1] that isn't considered welfalre [1].

If we raided these programs, along with the previously mentioned programs, we reach an annual budget of $3.5T. The per person math is $10,000/person/year. A two person household would very near the federal poverty line.[2]

It's starting to look like it could be viable if we add state budgets into the mix, and find another solution for elderly healthcare.

[0] https://www.cbpp.org/research/policy-basics-where-do-our-fed...

[1] https://www.cms.gov/data-research/statistics-trends-and-repo...

[2] https://aspe.hhs.gov/topics/poverty-economic-mobility/povert...

I hate welfare programs as much as the next libertarian leaning conservative, but overhead from means testing (and admin overhead generally) really isn't a major expense. Medicaid overhead is a grand total of 5% of the program.

It's really just UBI advocates handwaving away the question of funding.

The cost of means testing isn't just what you see on a budget. It's also all of the people who are eligible, but incapable of demonstrating that fact because of some byzantine requirements imposed on them to show eligibility[0].

There will, of course, be people who consider this to be a feature, not a bug. That's an ideological difference outside the scope of this comment.

[0] Source: I know someone applying for long-term disability. Getting an answer to a question as straightforward as how to sign the paperwork (wet signature, digital, print/sign/scan, fax?!) has been a challenge for them. It's also unclear if the three different signatures needed of them are even to be done the same way. This is a generally competent, functional person I'm talking about, by the way.

That's not a "cost" of means testing though, at least not in the accounting sense. If anything, that causes the program to spend less money. Like you said, whether or not otherwise qualifying people get excluded from a welfare program is a good or bad thing is up for debate, but if it has any effect on the cost of a welfare program it only reduces it.

It's a cost borne by society at large and specifically by the people who can't get enrolled in the programs they're eligible for. Not every cost is easily measured by accountants.