$12,000&#x2F;year per American adult who is not already on welfare or social security would cost about $2 Trillion per year.
To put that into perspective, Social Security cost $1.3 Trillion in 2013. The cost of all social welfare programs was $529 Billion. The GDP came in at around 17 Trillion.<p>The US could afford it if we really wanted to.<p>- Is it inflationary? Prima facia, it has to be. But then it would also increase the flow of money and put more people to work in places that the $1,000 gets spent.<p>- Is it fair? If every American receives it, regardless of their wealth, then I don&#x27;t see how it would be unfair.<p>- Is it realistic politically? It seems that the US was pretty close to something along these lines in the 60&#x27;s[0] and Obama finally got universal health care through. Perhaps it is realistic enough to at least put a true, modern pilot program in place and convince ourselves one way or the other. It really seems better than the alternative: Status quo for the homeless and the poor.<p>A real value is that lower financial stress across the entire country would free parents to focus more on raising their kids. Many, many social problems subside when families do better.<p>So my question is, how can we construct a valid experiment to convince ourselves one way or the other that this will benefit society overall, and provide enough value to actually do it?<p><a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.remappingdebate.org&#x2F;article&#x2F;guaranteed-income%E2%80%99s-moment-sun" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.remappingdebate.org&#x2F;article&#x2F;guaranteed-income%E2%...</a>