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Universal Basic Income
- 2. “WHY THE GOVERNMENT SHOULD GIVE US ALL $12,000” …AND WHY YOU SHOULD MAYBE AGREE WITH THAT
- 3. DISSECTING THE TERM • Beyond a floor of reasonable minimum requirements, it would be all-inclusive. No discrimination; no stigma. Universal • Everyone would be guaranteed the same, invariable payout, at the same intervals. There would be no need for re-filing paperwork. Basic • The money could be spent wherever, with no restrictions, as if part of one’s own personal income. Income
- 4. APPLYING UBI TO A MODERN AMERICA The implementation of UBI gaining the most momentum in the USA (as of writing) comes from 2020 candidate Andrew Yang. • A Basic Income of $1000 per month to every adult American citizen This would be in lieu of most existing social benefit programs • This would not funded by traditional taxes—no citizen, not even a billionaire, would see a tax increase. This is the right choice—it avoids partisan tension. “It is justice, and not charity . . . in all great cases it is necessary to have a principle more universally active than charity, and, with respect to justice, it ought not to be left to the choice of detached individuals whether they will do justice or not.” – Founding Father Thomas Paine, regarding “ground-rent”, his philosophical precursor to UBI. If the Freedom Dividend sounds interesting, you can learn more at Yang2020.com
- 5. WHY UBI? Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk, the Anime♥er among them, many influential characters support UBI, and there are good reasons for this. Automation Musk believes, as do many others, that A.I. and automation will eventually push humans out of many classic professions like trucking, customer service, and even surgery. A basic income would give people the breathing room to pursue other ventures like learning a trade or going back to school.
- 6. WHY UBI? 2 Student Loan Debt Forbes says the average U.S. student loan debt for 2016 graduates was Receiving an extra $12,000/yr would make a world of difference for students. UBI wouldn’t solve the problem, but it would help greatly. Source: CNBC $37,172. Anecdotally… It’s as if the only lucrative and employable majors lie in S.T.E.M. I’d swap to a liberal arts degree, but I want to get a job. The safety assured by a basic income would allow people like me study something meaningful to them—STEM isn’t for everyone, and it shouldn’t have to be. Revival of Passion and Altruism With this additional income, people could sustain passions like writing, video-making, drawing, and so on. Choosing an altruistic career that vital to society like teaching, therapy or journalism shouldn’t resign someone to a life of struggling to put food on the table, and UBI helps to remedy the low incomes of such professions.
- 7. ELEPHANTS IN THE ROOM Massive Inflation Logically, giving citizens so much money would cause prices to rise and pay to fall, so wouldn’t UBI just lead to rampant inflation and lower wages? Fiscal Impossibility Giving ~300,000,000 people $12,000 per year would take an insanely large fund. Where would the money even come from?! Proliferation of Laziness Surely people would work less or even quit their jobs entirely, right? There would be no incentive to work!
- 8. TAMING AFOREMENTIONED ELEPHANTS Alaska’s “Permanent Fund” Since the 70’s, Alaska has distributed an annual, oil-funded income to its citizens Following the APF’s inception, inflation has stayed down, and Alaska’s employment rate has remained either higher or unchanged. Source: pfd.Alaska.gov AK $1,000 – 2,000/yr • 65% more likely to practice a trade • Worked 17 hours more on average Source: The Economic and Social Returns to Cash Transfers: Evidence from a Ugandan Aid Program • Had 49% higher incomes 2 yrs later Uganda’s Experiment The Ugandan government issued $380—the equivalent of half a year’s income—to one group, and used a control group as a benchmark. The beneficiary group became… UG
- 9. TAMING THE LARGEST ELEPHANT 330,000,000 people – 74,000,000 minors – 2,200,000 jailed = 253,000,000 253,000,000 x 12,000/yr = $3.03 tn/yr Sources: census.gov and prisonstudies.org Funding UBI (in Trillions of USD)* 1/2 of Welfare (0.6 tn) 1/2 of SSI fund (1.4 tn) VAT (0.8 tn) Est. UBI-fueled econ. Growth (0.6 tn) Healthcare & Service Savings (0.2 tn) Sourced from Yang2020.com and sanity-checked with ssa.gov, Elaboration on Funding Sources Reallocation of existing welfare funds covers much of the cost. The remainder could be funded by a value-added tax (VAT), which would result in, at most, a 10% price increase on certain items. The greatest strength of a VAT is that it is unavoidable for corporations—like a sales tax, it’s built into pricetags. *It should be noted that there are many possible ways to fund UBI, including defense budget cuts, a VAT exceeding 10%, “data taxes”, oil royalties (like Alaska)… a VAT is just the simplest solution. ≈ $3.4 tn
- 10. IN THE END 2019 America faces a laundry list of issues—it doesn’t take a politician’s buzzword salad to see that. We’re at a crossroads. Should we sit here complacently, waiting for our rude (and possibly fiery) awakening…? …or should we be proactive and try to find bona fide solutions, instead of restating the problems ad nauseum? How about we stop thinking right or left, and instead start thinking ? Basic income is not a perfect solution, but it is a pretty good one, and most importantly: it’s something, and its greatest strengths lies in the fact it isn’t a partisan policy. It’s also plausible—we know both why and how we’d go about instituting it.