This could just be solved by having a total BI payout pegged at a fixed % of overall tax revenues. As more people earn less and pay less taxes, BI payouts also decrease as they are split among more people so the burden on the remaining taxpayers doesn't overwhelm them.
Then we could adjust that % every year (or not) based on actual conditions, how generous / prosperous / stingy we as a society are feeling, plus it gives a mechanism by which automation productivity gains can get rolled back into a BI program to (warning: utopian thinking ahead) eventually fund fewer workers overall, plus workers who work fewer hours, but we still have economic/automation gains rolled (via ongoing taxation) back into the BI support.
This basically shores up the "moral hazard" counterargument to BI proposals (which is the first thing that comes up for me after the "how do you pay for it" thing Max solved).
Speaking of utopia, what I'd really prefer is for BI to be funded as 100% of land value tax and pollution/carbon taxes. But that could be for another article. Even if nobody's working and everything's automated, we'll still need natural resources to house people and build things, so this would be sustainable.
Good idea wrt land-value and pollution/sustainability taxes too, makes total sense.
I hope this makes the idea more palatable to conservatives, as opposed to proposing a particular level of basic income (e.g. $15k/year) and then figuring out how to finance the extra cost. If we want society to redistribute more, that's fine, but IMO should be addressed separately from basic income, which can be beneficially enacted within the current redistribution parameters. The framework also clarifies how small steps can lead to BI someday, for example expanding the EITC instead of food stamps.
Also, what do you do about the difference in cost of living across cities? Do you take the housing allowance, give them a basic income and tell them to move if it's not enough?
And what do you do with the small number of people with addiction issues who just blow through the basic income and are left homeless? I highly doubt we're going to tell them "tough, you get to live on the street".
That said, they certainly wouldn't have the same BI as everyone else, just as children wouldn't and the elderly probably wouldn't as well, since they have existing programs targeted to them. The idea is just to replace non-cash benefits within each group (those four are probably sufficient), and smooth out the payout curve and find the equivalent BI for that NIT.
CoL adjustments would result from this as well: the primary way this is currently done is via housing as you mention. Any housing assistance benefit can be valued like other programs, so that could then be disbursed as cash. In practice, this means layered basic incomes at the federal/state/local level, and if done gradually they could be designed to minimize evictions.
Those with addiction issues who would spend all their money tend to have mental illness, which hinders their ability to get benefits in the current system. I suggest retaining social workers for such circumstances:
> Some of these programs will likely be more effective than their cash value — especially those serving the physically disabled and mentally ill — and should remain intact.
One of the huge benefits of BI is that it's simple, you just give everyone the same amount of money. The more your start layering on exceptions, the more bureaucracy you'll create and you're back to square one.
I would answer "yes" to your second paragraph, excepting possibly residents of Hawaii.
Regarding your third paragraph, we (society) already do tell a segment of the population "tough, you get to live on the street". Why is it so hard to believe society would suddenly find it unpalatable in this case? Basic income is nice, though, because it provides a path out of homelessness, and that's something that's often not present.
"To be revenue-neutral, some people will be worse off with a smooth curve (e.g. those earning $29k getting maximum benefits), and others will be better off (e.g. those who lose $6k of benefits after earning just over $29k). But every dollar earned will lead to improved livelihood."
can be finessed in a palatable way. Try to avoid too many you took money from grandma to give to the pot smoking college kid. You sold me on it. The only problem I see how do you convince the voter on disability complaining about the gorvn'ment and all it GD entitlements... and your also talking about the country that's about to elect the guy that wants to ban Muslims from the country.
I am curious what Trump might think of basic income. I tried to write this piece to appeal to conservatives who want to shrink the antipoverty bureaucracy, and I believe there's a lot to like about BI from both sides of the aisle.
As a counterexample, the Alaska Permanent Fund [2] is very popular, and economists have found it keeps thousands out of poverty.
[1] http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/20... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaska_Permanent_Fund
And maybe that will be roughly true initially but people change their behaviour and maybe the guy who would have done the $50k job if you give him say $300/week no strings attached will say hey, why slave away when I can go to Bali and surf and smoke joints.
We had something like that when I was a kid - the somewhat socialist UK government brought in generous untested welfare and some people used it to hit the beach in Spain and then the remaining workers paying the bills objected.
Napkin math: 2000 hours (approx full time hours per year) * $7.25/hr (US min wage) * 50% = $7250. Cost of transportation, child care, and other things that wouldn't be required if unemployed could easily eat most of that, netting a wage of just a dollar or two per hour.
I dont think basic income is tenable in the US without raising taxes on high income earners, perhaps significantly.
