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this post was submitted on 04 Apr 2024
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The thing that keeps it from working is the cost. None of these experiments test the U in UBI.
Giving even a measly $10k in UBI to every US (for example) citizen of working age would cost over $2 trillion annually.
The sum of all welfare spending last year was $1 trillion. So, the common argument that cutting other programs to replace it with UBI holds no water--cutting all of it only gets you halfway to a paltry sum that's far below the poverty line, and the whole reason we're talking about UBI to begin with is because people don't feel that those programs do enough to help the impoverished.
What about military spending? The sum of all defense spending last year was $800 billion. Cutting 100% of it (which would be objectively stupid for reasons I hope wouldn't need explaining) won't get you there either.
What about taking the billionaires' wealth? The total estimated net worth of all US billionaires is $5.2 trillion. Even if you could wave a magic wand and convert all of this "net worth" 1:1 into cash, that still funds this shitty tiny hypothetical $10k UBI for less than 3 years.
We are simply not in a state where true UBI is even close to financially viable.
so, basically, according to your example, we could take yearly welfare spending, assuming it's 1 trillion. Every year, delete an entire section of bureacratic bullshit, and then everyone would get 5 grand annually.
Seems pretty cut and dry to me.
Now to be fair, that is all of welfare, so not exactly ideal, but still. It's a pretty manageable concept in that regard.
If you remove every welfare program that exists, sure. But that's not good--remember that UBI goes to everyone, while welfare program dollars go based on need. So it stands to reason that the average person who gets some sort(s) of welfare now, will end up able to buy less care with that $5000 annually, than they're getting now.