I feel immigration to the US is too restrictive as it is, let alone what it would become if it meant giving everyone a paycheck. You basically have these options:

1. Restrict immigration (perhaps you are OK with this, I am not. I feel immigration is one of the fundamental things that helped this country succeed, and that we should be moving to make it MORE open, not less).

2. Allow immigration but not offer basic income until you are a citizen. Now you have a classist system. If you were born in the US you are part of the citizen caste, that is guaranteed income from taxes (a nobility if you will), if you were born outside the borders you must work for your income here. Sure, eventually you could be "admitted", but it seems weird that an 18 year old would be allowed to do whatever he wants but someone just entering the country with three kids would be forced to work.

3. Offer basic income to everyone that comes in, have no restriction, and default immediately.

If you think Americans are xenophobic now, just wait to see their attitudes if basic income ever passes.

I do think that basic income needs to introduced gradually and needs to be paired with reductions in the minimum wage.

This reduction in the bottom range of wages will make more jobs economically viable (Since they have to produce less value to make a profit beyond the cost of the wages). It makes immigration less attractive to people earning the bottom range of wages without leaving our working poor in the lurch. This combined with the provision of basic income to citizens makes citizens more able to compete for low income jobs since they are being subsidized.

I feel this is a bit too early for basic income. That change will come to pass naturally when society will be able to continue to exist and function normally even if almost nobody will work. That would require some pretty hefty advancements in AI and robotics.

Basically, I don't see struggle-free basic income without the robots doing all the work for us.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eight-hour_day

>"If you think Americans are xenophobic now, just wait to see their attitudes if basic income ever passes." I unfortunately agree with this.

More realistically, just reason instead what the least you need as an individual is, work to get it from within whatever economy you find yourself in, and then begin the REAL work of life, developing your happiness for and from what you have.

See: Tolstoy's "How Much Land Does A Man Need?"

The word for that is inflation, and so far economists have not seen evidence that a basic income would effect inflation.

developing your happiness for and from what you have.

That's a good goal for microeconomics. But this is about macroeconomics.

Really?

First off, any basic income that is provided is not going to come close to what a 'highly technically skilled' individual makes.

Secondly, if those individuals do find some activity or undertaking valuable enough to trade the relative income for, it probably has unrecognized value. I would bet they these individuals will acquire expertise, develop new knowledge, and create new things that will be highly benificial to society.

This is very similar we what do with grants to scientists conducting general research. Following your logic, we have too many important problems to bother wasting scientists time on anything that isn't an immediate problem.

Thirdly, there is no way that these individuals would be operating 'without any sort of economic integration whatsoever'. They would still be consuming in our society and their non-consumptive actions would still have economic effects.

That said, I don't think we are at the point we can realistically provide a basic income capable of supporting a reasonable standard of living. I do think we can start providing a basic supplementary income and I think that if paired with reductions in the minimum wage, it could be very successful at stimulating economic growth during the next downturn or slow down.

http://www.economist.com/news/finance-and-economics/21651897...

And yet, current government spending is 21% of GDP, and that amounts to $12,000 per man, woman and child. Remember, not everyone will hold on to their $12,000. Many will pay back a portion in taxes, and some will pay all of it back. And children will probably not receive the full amount, their parents instead getting a growing percentage until the child is 18. That's about 25% of the population. People in prison would not receive their basic income while serving their sentence, I'd assume. That's about 1% of the population, although I'd hope a basic income would decrease that.

The Swiss proposal would be $32,400 per person, for 74% of the US population, which would come to 7.7 trillion, or around 46% of the GDP.

Sounds outrageous, yes, but consider the fact that we are continually increasing the amount of wealth we create, while drastically reducing the labor necessary to create it.

GDP will continue to increase and wages will continue to stagnate and fall. And at some point, certain disruptive technologies (such as self-driving cars) will decimate whole industries almost overnight.

What that means is that the basic income amount won't be increasing nearly as quickly as the GDP, which means that balking at a current-day percentage of GDP will make less and less sense.

Especially when you're facing massive discontent and the prospect of a near freeze on consumer spending.

Basic income is a great idea, but something that is actually politically workable and a lot smaller in scope is needed. It is constantly advocated around here with no real evidence that it is workable at scale.