Some good points. That does seem to get us to the right ballpark. However:
- Can you really exclude kids? They still need someone to support them. They may not get their 10k, but their parents need extra (presumably around 10k for each child) to support them.
- If you switch to a means-tested system (the article actually advocates for everyone gets 10k, not just the poor), don’t you lose many of the benefits the article advocates? Eg, you go back to the complexity of having to determine who’s eligible, rather than gaining the efficiency of just saying “everyone”.
- A means-tested system also creates the perverse incentive that the article’s BI would bypass: people near the threshold for BI have a weakened incentive to work extra for fear of losing or lessening their BI.
Edit: Actually, a comment lower down points out that our social security expenditures were $1.3 trillion in 2013[0], so that's our lower bound. "Income derived from Social Security is currently estimated to keep roughly 20% of all Americans, age 65 or older, above the Federally defined poverty level." Since BI would replace SS, we'll be paying at least that amount to start with.
The idea of BI is generally to give everyone the money and reclaim it through taxes from those who "aren't eligible", where several models are proposed (land, consumption, or income).
Take income taxes (I like that model for its simplicity because both sides are income):
You get your $10k, but there's a progressive income tax. To invent some random figures: for the first $10k (on top of BI) you pay nothing, at $50k you pay $10k, at $100k you pay $30k. For example: for every dollar between $10k and $50k: $0.25, for every dollar beyond $50k: $0.40.
Once you earn $50k, your BI cancels out, anything higher and you contribute to the BI of others. (simplifying some more: income tax contributes to BI, all other public expenditures are paid through other taxes, like land or consumption).
Progressive taxes are well understood, relatively abuse-free (it can only be gamed by not declaring income), and at no point create a >100% marginal tax rate: tax grows faster than before, but never faster than your income.
That way the complexity of welfare, its abuse and people falling through its cracks is eliminated (or so proponents hope), while still "effectively paying" the $10k in BI only to those who really need them.
(Disclaimer: the tax brackets above probably break down easily when applied to reality, so only use them to discuss the model ;-) )
- Can you really exclude kids? They still need someone to support them. They may not get their 10k, but their parents need extra (presumably around 10k for each child) to support them.
- If you switch to a means-tested system (the article actually advocates for everyone gets 10k, not just the poor), don’t you lose many of the benefits the article advocates? Eg, you go back to the complexity of having to determine who’s eligible, rather than gaining the efficiency of just saying “everyone”.
- A means-tested system also creates the perverse incentive that the article’s BI would bypass: people near the threshold for BI have a weakened incentive to work extra for fear of losing or lessening their BI.
Edit: Actually, a comment lower down points out that our social security expenditures were $1.3 trillion in 2013[0], so that's our lower bound. "Income derived from Social Security is currently estimated to keep roughly 20% of all Americans, age 65 or older, above the Federally defined poverty level." Since BI would replace SS, we'll be paying at least that amount to start with.
[0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Security_(United_States)