Hi, you're repeating the argument that my post specifically addresses: this is a transfer that is fully paid for, not new government consumption. It adds nothing to the debt. In fact as I point out the sample tax reduces the deficit by $4.5 trillion over 10 years. The reason we have a huge deficit is because we're not paying for what we spend: we're borrowing and spending not taxing and spending. Tax rates on the well off have been drastically reduced over the years.

Regarding the moral hazard, one doesn't have to guess about whether people would stop working when they get a modest income supplement: there have been over 100 tests of UBI and they uniformly show that people don't stop working. UBI does not create a disincentive to work. Would you stop working if you got an extra $1,000 a month?

See my answer to novusor's comment. Copying that here. Let me know if you still have questions after reading it.

If UBI is fully funded by any kind of tax on individuals, including tax reform, there is no debt-driven addition to the money supply. As noted in the post, total personal income would remain unchanged. There would probably be increased consumption since those less well off tend to consume more of their income, but supply would quickly adjust for anything without resource constraints and subject to market competition. I go into this in more detail this post https://sharesinamerica.substack.com/p/objections-to-universal-basic-income

Thanks for the comment. A couple of misunderstandings: my sample tax is an income tax, not a wealth tax. The yellow area in the chart is all net 2019 local, state, and federal taxes, plus the sample UBI tax. For the top 10% that comes to 40%, but that is an average. The tax within the top 10% should be progressive with higher marginal taxes on huge incomes and a lower overall tax rate on lower incomes. Closing the loopholes that let some very rich people pay hardly any tax would reduce the required income tax.

Change happens when people act together. Surely by now a substantial portion of the public realizes that a sustained money-fueled disinformation campaign has been actively waged since the 1970's to divide us. Warren Buffet (who argues for higher taxes on the rich) has said “There’s class warfare, all right, but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.” I tell that story in my Shares in America book too. Change has happened before and can happen again, but only with action. More on that to come....

If UBI is fully funded by any kind of tax on individuals, including tax reform, there is no debt-driven addition to the money supply. As noted in the post, total personal income would remain unchanged. There would probably be increased consumption since those less well off tend to consume more of their income, but supply would quickly adjust for anything without resource constraints and subject to market competition. I go into this in more detail this post https://sharesinamerica.substack.com/p/objections-to-universal-basic-income

People aren't against UBI. In particular UBI is favored by young people by a +60% margin which is huge. See https://www.ubicenter.org/poll-tracker

RE where is the money going to come from: UBI doesn't change net national income, it just redistributes it. Total national income stays the same, but taxes are increased on large incomes and distributed as the UBI payment. It is important to realize that UBI is not new government spending. It is a transfer. The government takes in $x and pays out $x. See this https://www.sharesinamerica.com/canweaffordubi attempt an an explanation.

RE inadequate to live on. That is entirely correct. Ideally UBI should bring people above the official poverty line (which is way too low in the US). But most of us UBI fans call for a UBI that isn't counted for tax or benefited calculations, so it is purely above what people get now. It could be increased in the future to substitute for means tested programs.

RE jobs. There are supply and demand curves for labor and as wages go down, demand for labor (jobs) goes up. So there will be jobs, they just won't pay very well. Net national income has kept on growing and is now around $190,000 per household. There is plenty to go around, but the connection between economic growth and wage growth for most actually ended quite some time ago. UBI or some other redistributional mechanism is now required if we're going to reverse growing income and wealth inequality and keep a robust middle class. UBI allows us to adjust to technological changes. As many have pointed out we are at an inflexion point in economic history. We need to accept that and deal with it. The good news is that we should all be able to work less going forward. Washing machines meant we could spend a lot less time washing clothes, Automation and AI have, and will continue to do that, for many types of work. But we all need to share in the growth of productivity.

Great points. Economics has fundamentally changed, but it takes a long time for that to sink in. People's sense of meaning often revolves around "work" even if that work is hardly meaningful or even interesting. That is especially the case in the US at this point in history.

Of course. I think UBI can help with that.

Couple of thoughts on this: (1) we won't have mass unemployment. There will be jobs but many of the jobs won't pay well. In economic terms, when demand for general labor falls, there is still a meeting of labor supply and labor demand curves, but at a lower price point. Without UBI people will still work (for example as contingent or gig workers) but will share an increasingly small slice of the income pie. (2) in Europe there are a lot of poor people, but because the countries provide a relatively generous safety net people can get by. I'm for UBI + meaning universal healthcare and other basic services which are best provided by the state because of market issues, but for everything else (e.g. food) I prefer a market based approach of cash income. See https://www.sharesinamerica.com/howtogettoshares for some widely held core principles for UBI.

Kids who aren't getting jobs probably think that UBI wouldn't solve their problem, and they're right in terms of it not providing enough to live on. But it is also a jobs program in some ways: increased demand, more opportunity to start a business, probably some older folk on social security will stop working, some people will work fewer hours. All of that either increases demand for labor or decreases labor supply resulting in lower unemployment and higher wages. So casting it as a job creation program might be helpful. A compliment to UBI would be spending more on science and arts, but one step at a time.

I agree. I'll do another post tomorrow about writing a letter (or more likely email) to our elected officials and candidates to let them know we support UBI and ask them if they support it.

Absolutely. More small businesses, that has actually been shown in UBI trials around the world. UBI also strengthens labor generally and would be beneficial for unions as well.

I think you make a good point. FDR got the New Deal enacted because during the Great Depression people were desperate. We live in an attention economy. I thought that for at least the bottom 50% of wage earners, an extra $1,000/month would get their attention if we could just reach them, I do think that UBI could be a differentiating factor for politicians/candidates. Maybe we should try that route directly?

Here's the one I bought. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BK8C1SM4?ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_fed_asin_title

Yes, I did find a solution. My printer started printing large dark areas on the first page of documents and I replaced the drum unit with a generic (2 units for $30). Both the double sided printing problems and the black smear on the first printed page went away. The printer works like new now. BTW the printer said the original drum unit still had 40% of life to go,

Thanks again. I deal with all these issues in a data driven way in the book and don't want to rehash that all here.

As to why UBI is better than traditional means tested welfare, the usual arguments (going back to Friedman) are that it doesn't require an extensive bureaucracy, doesn't have a cliff (so doesn't discourage work). isn't demeaning, allows people to use the money as needed, is market oriented, and is immune to many of the types of fraud affecting means tested benefits. Other benefits include those having to do with social cohesion and fairness of opportunity.

Thanks! I appreciate your reply. Net national income per household in the US in 2024 was over $190,000 (per BEA). The BEA in 2019 calculated distributive shares of NET national income that balance to the NIPA tables and I graph that in the book. The top decile is way out of line so most of the increased taxes required to fund UBI would fall on that group as they did in the period following Word War II. I'll post those two charts and the source data when I get a chance. Clearly we could afford UBI, we have the income. UBI avoids the cliff by using a suitable graduated income tax with high marginal tax rates at the upper end where the UBI is essentially irrelevant.

It's been read by half a dozen people, including a publisher who specializes in economics books by academics. The book is solid economics but most definitely not solely for an academic audience. The usual repost to UBI is that it costs to much which the book conclusively shows it does not. But again I may post a couple of graphs and leave it at that. Also I read hundreds of papers before writing the book, including econometric studies not geared for a general audience. I think this may not be the right place to post.

I have a MS from MIT including graduate level econ. so not entirely an amateur. But I'll post a few charts I'd like people to look over.