UBI is the risk in question, and the economics ARE terrible. The average US income is ~$37K and that includes workers. How does that stack up with expectations for UBI, given that it would take 100% socialization of income to reach that level of UBI.
> it would take 100% socialization of income to reach that level of UBI
I want to see you attempt to do the math to show that.
Here's my rough math: Mean income is about $60k. If we take the extra simple option, we can increase all tax brackets by 20% and give everyone a $12k credit, and it trivially balances. The median income increases, the low end of income drastically increases, and higher incomes drop.
Such an outcome is very far from total socialization. The effective tax rate of anyone below $60k income drops, and the max marginal rate is a not-crazy 57%.
But also we can make the tax increase progressive as well. And we can include capital gains as income and lower the percents. And we can cut a good chunk of existing welfare which decreases the tax burden. This isn't a suggestion for an optimal method, it's a basic sanity check.
60k is the average working income, not average adult income or human income.
You are also casually applying a 20% hike, which for many people is their entire budget after taxes and housing. My effective rate is already >40%, and you are proposing another 20%. That would mean others are getting more of my salary than I am.
12k seems an absurdity low number to provide universal shelter, Healthcare, food, security, and entertainment. My newspapers are full of stories on how 100k/yr isn't a living wage in California
My effective rate is already >40%, and you are proposing another 20%. That would mean others are getting more of my salary than I am.
There’s nothing magical about exceeding a 50% marginal tax rate. (Hitting 100%, sure, that would be bad.)
There’s definitely a psychological threshold there for most people. I ran an informal survey a few years back about what tax rates people would consider fair, and there was a very strong clustering at 50%.
I have a hard time understanding it myself. The whole point of taxation is redistribution, so why would you care whether you’re “winning” versus the marginal tax rate?
>The whole point of taxation is redistribution, so why would you care whether you’re “winning” versus the marginal tax rate?
A substantial portion of the population doesnt think taxation should be used for distribution at all. They think the fundamental point of taxation is to pay for public goods that everyone uses like roads, police, and firemen.
> 60k is the average working income, not average adult income or human income.
It's close enough, that's for 240 million people. If I use Gross National Income I get a much higher number.
I'm not worried about children right this second.
> You are also casually applying a 20% hike, which for many people is their entire budget after taxes and housing.
Another 20%, minus 12 thousand dollars. That makes a big difference.
The median worker would pay significantly less than before.
And I already said progressive would be better. But a flat tax like that is very simple and would not be the end of the world.
> My effective rate is already >40%, and you are proposing another 20%. That would mean others are getting more of my salary than I am.
Are you taking the minus 12k into account? If so it sounds like you're making a lot more than the people you just described that can't find reasonable housing. You'll be fine.
> 12k seems an absurdity low number to provide universal shelter, Healthcare, food, security, and entertainment. My newspapers are full of stories on how 100k/yr isn't a living wage in California
The nice thing about having a guaranteed income is that you actually can move without massive risk.
Or you can adjust it based on location, idk, I'm going with the simple version first. If it only helps most people then that's enough to show the idea has merit. Nitpicking won't work!
Okay. Please stop nitpicking and either defend your claim about "100% socialization of income" or admit you were wrong.
Sorry for saying irrelevant words, I will try to minimize them.
A flat tax increase of 20% of income minus 12k would be far from ideal, but anyone making less than 60k would have less taxes, anyone making 60k-120k would have a 0-10% of income increase, and super high cost of living places could use different numbers.
The exact details don't matter because I only made that scenario to prove your claim wrong. Because it's wrong.
At the end of the day, I have fun I don't think you are 60k number is right, or your 12K number is sufficient to cover all of the cost of living a comfortable life. This is fundamental to the difference. I think the desired level of Ubi is on par if not higher than the average American Income. This leads to the 100% redistribution claim. It is very simple.
If we assume the average income is 60k, urinalysis is still wrong. A 20% flat tax for Ubi would then provide a 12K benefit. This would not be a net positive for incomes between 60 and 120k. The break-even point would be an income of 60k, progressing to a 10% net loss at 120k. 20% of 120 is negative 24,000, and 12 would be returned via Ubi.
I meant to say income tax increase of 0-10% for 60k-120k. That's why I said break even at 60k. Sorry for the confusion.
> I think the desired level of Ubi is on par if not higher than the average American Income. This leads to the 100% redistribution claim. It is very simple.
You think the "desired level of UBI" is more than the median income? You're talking to caricatures and fools, not real advocates. And you should have said you were talking about far more than $1000 a month significantly earlier in the conversation.
I think most advocates sell UBI as a replacement for welfare and enough that people would feel "comfortable" quitting jobs they don't like, or support the disabled.
Top post for this thread mocks 12K as a negligible handout, and claims UBI has never been tried.
Let me ask you what level of UBI would support a disabled mother of two that cant work?
What level of UBI would allow a construction worker to quit their job and go back to engineering school?
These are exactly the types of things advocates claim UBI would solve (along with poverty and crime).
> Top post for this thread mocks 12K as a negligible handout, and claims UBI has never been tried.
Top post says it's not enough to quit their jobs (and keep the same lifestyle, presumably) or to get a "nice" apartment. That doesn't make it negligible.
And the claim of never really trying is also true, these tests tend to be small and pick random people out of a big crowd.
> Let me ask you what level of UBI would support a disabled mother of two that cant work?
That depends on whether the children are getting UBI, or whether there is a separate program for poor children. But UBI for the mother alone should not be expected to pay for that situation.
> What level of UBI would allow a construction worker to quit their job and go back to engineering school?
Well we don't fix tuition prices through UBI. Or the housing crisis.
But let's see. 20 years ago, adjusted for inflation, you could easily get a dorm bed for $4000 per school year at a big school. (Yes I know that doesn't cover the entire year.) So if we can just do that again, and charge a reasonable tuition (my local college is about $2500 per year right now and that number would be fine) then $12k of UBI would let someone go to school.
