Ask Lemmy

Here is a map of basic income pilot programs from around the world.

Not only has it been studied, the studies have been taking place for over fifty years. Universal basic income is cheaper in practice than the numerous other social programs that help people who either can't work, shouldn't work or can't work enough to afford their needs.

In a lot of cases the people who choose to work less do so because they have children, health issues or dependants.

Why is it that the question of finance is ALWAYS one of the first hurdles when discussing things like climate change and social services, but somehow when it's for the military or Nazi Gestapo, the money magically materializes?

There exists more than enough money to fund it. We just need to extract it from the billionaires who are hoarding it.

UBI is funded by taxes, it's actually not has hard as it seems because people always do the math in the "logical" way and it isn't actually the right way to consider the cost.

If you give a UBI of say $10,000 a year to everyone (let's just keep it simple) for every citizen in Canada (let's say 40 million people) you'd think that the total cost would be $400 Billion dollars a year, right?

Except that's not how it actually works, what you'd do at the same time is raise taxes (preferably on property, but stupid politicians gonna put it on income instead) so that it balances around a specific income level getting nothing, with people above that level paying in, and people below that amount receiving a benefit. So if you've got a family of 4 (2 adults, 2 kids) with a median family income of say $80k (again, just keeping it simple) you'd raise their taxes by $30,000 a year, and then give them $40,000 a year in basic income. Then you've got a well-to-do family making $150,000 a year that pays $60,000 more in taxes, and only gets $40,000 a year back.

The total "cost" of the program is actually only the net amount transferred. It's easy to understand this if you think through a situation, when you tax someone $40,000, then give them $40,000 the total cost of that transfer is zero.

If you tax one person $20,000, give them $10,000, tax another person $10,000, and give them $10,000, and tax a third person $0 (not working) and give them $10,000 then the ACTUAL cost for the whole program is only $10,000, despite total taxes being $30,000, and total payouts being $30,000. So instead of costing $400 Billion for all of Canada, depending on what number they balance the whole thing around, it could be a reasonable amount and still cost under $100 billion a year.

There's actually a study from the Parliamentary Budget Office of Canada that outlines the more realistic cost.

This would apply similarly to any other country attempting to implement such a policy.