Can Universal Basic Income Transform Society?

Re:Can Universal Basic Income Transform Society? by al_borland on Wednesday July 17, 2024 @10:01AM (#40986069)

I don’t understand this. If everyone is getting taxed to the point where they only make $34k, this UBI solution would make everyone poor with no way to work harder, or learn more, to get ahead. This is how black markets to get paid under the table start to form.

And if all the UBI is coming from the tax someone pays in, just lower taxes. It would have the same impact without all the extra overhead.

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Re:Can Universal Basic Income Transform Society? by bryanlarsen on Wednesday July 17, 2024 @10:49AM (#40986533)

> . If everyone is getting taxed to the point where they only make $34k

Only the average taxpayer gets taxed that amount. It roughly means a 16% tax increase. Somebody making $1M a year would pay $160K extra and get $12K in UBI.

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Re:Can Universal Basic Income Transform Society? by al_borland on Wednesday July 17, 2024 @11:00AM (#40986654)

How is everyone not worse off under this plan? They are being bled dry by taxes and tossed a couple nickels back as UBI. No one would vote for this.

The only people who wouldn’t be worse off are people with no income to start with. I assume they’d get some base level $1k UBI.

I think Andrew Yang had the right idea, in the limited amount I heard. Tax the cooperations that are using AI or automation to reduce the need for workers. Their costs are going down, while their profits stay high, so capture that and give it to the people who were displaced. Bleeding the middle class, and people in general, doesn’t make sense.

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