SNAP for a single person is $291/month - total income * 0.3 so they get nothing at 11,640 per year of annual income and 291$/month at 0$ annual income.
2024 income brackets for single people are: 10% $0 to $11,600, 12% $11,600 to $47,150, 22% $47,151 to $100,525, ... Maximum tax bracket is 37%.
Hand everyone 260$ per month, but change things so the highest tax bracket 37% applies $0 to $11,600 and everyone making 12,000+$/ year sees zero change in their take home pay. And people making 0$/year get 260$/month.
Those numbers aren’t quite identical, but it’s surprising how close it ends up. At 30%, $0 to $11,640 it’s off by less than 1$/year.
If so, how is that universal? Or a basic income covering some of the basic resources UBI is argued to cover, like shelter or food?
UBI means everyone has an income of at least x$/year. If you’re making more than x$/year in take home pay that’s an income > x$/year.
Behind the scenes the advantage of the government handing out money every month is redundancy. Even if that same amount is normally removed from a paycheck, people aren’t suddenly left with 0$ if their paycheck bounces etc. Thus a single deposit of $10,000 per month is slightly worse than a deposit of $10,000 - $x and an independent deposit of $x.
With limits so low I'm not totally sure how it would make a meaningful difference compared to the various welfare and entitlement programs we have today in the US. We already have multiple programs attempting to give needs-based funding to the public. How is such a limited UBI as you describe it any different, or different enough to justify the massive political battle it would entail?
