A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing
This article says it&#x27;s talking about a universal basic income, and makes the usual point that a completely universal, no-strings-attached income is simple to administer, doesn&#x27;t have poverty traps, etc.<p>And then, towards the end where it starts looking at numbers, it starts saying things like<p>&gt; But by excluding 45 million retirees who already receive a basic income through Social Security, the cost falls to $2.7 trillion. And if the benefit is phased out for households earning more than $100,000 (that would be 20 percent of the U.S.&#x27;s 115 million households, or about 70 million people, assuming three to a household), the cost declines to about $2 trillion. You could confine the program to adults and shrink the price tag even more, possibly to as low as $1.5 trillion.<p>Yes, you can reduce the amount paid out by making it <i>not a universal basic income scheme</i> any more. But that rather misses the point.<p>(The <i>correct</i> thing to say here is: Yes, a universal basic income sufficient to keep everyone out of poverty would be really expensive. Taxes would need to go up a lot, which would leave wealthier people less well off than they are now. If you don&#x27;t want a large-scale redistribution of wealth, then you don&#x27;t want a BI scheme sufficient to keep everyone out of poverty. But you might still want to consider a BI scheme that&#x27;s <i>not</i> sufficient to keep everyone out of poverty, to simplify and to reduce poverty traps. No one would have to be much worse off then. But it wouldn&#x27;t be enough for anyone to live on, and would still need supplementing by other safety nets.)