<i>&gt;This seems an unreasonable standard to apply to anything. Hardly any policy is a Pareto improvement. Applying such a tough standard amounts to very strong status quo bias.</i><p>Sorry I wasn&#x27;t clear.  I wasn&#x27;t making that statement as a &quot;justification&quot; for not implementing UBI.  It was about how it&#x27;s being &quot;sold&quot; politically.<p>Personally, if I were to push for UBI, I&#x27;d tell people that the only realistic way we can afford it is if we all agree to take a hit in standard-of-living.  I don&#x27;t have irrefutable proof but that&#x27;s what I think will have to happen.  However, it doesn&#x27;t necessarily we shouldn&#x27;t do it.  With the mass effects of citizens avoiding low-wage jobs, maybe it&#x27;s better for society that Walmart is open 6 days a week 9am to 7pm instead of 24&#x2F;7 and for Amazon-Prime to scale back to 1-week delivery instead of 2-day, etc, etc.    Or Amazon-Prime costs $199&#x2F;year instead of $99.<p>If sophisticated dynamic equations show that middle &amp; upper class will have to &quot;suffer&quot; a bit to provide the entire country a UBI... fine.  But sell it that way to them and let everyone have open eyes going into it.  I&#x27;m skeptical that we can fund UBI just by renaming existing govt assistance programs so that it ends up being virtually &quot;free&quot; to taxpayers.