That's untrue. Switzerland is having a national referendum on whether to offer one, and stipends from oil or casino money, while not enough to live on at this point, already exist in a few places. You may be correct that there's not enough money to give everyone enough to live on, but it's far from sci-fi.
(There is plenty of money in the world, it's just tied up in things like insane finance industry salaries, or $500k/yr/person for imprisonment, etc.)
And historically? People looked after their own menial tasks, where they were small enough, and where the tasks were too big for individuals (like roads, or building a town hall) the community got together and did it.
NOTE: I don't mean politics in the negative sense, I mean it in the sense of ones beliefs/experiences/political-stance/etc.
He's pointing out that it's a practical impossibility. The money for UBI has to come from somewhere, and any money a government has at its disposal comes from: 1) extortion (ie. taxation), 2) printing, 3) borrowing.
Those are the three options, and none of them are a sustainable way to fund UBI, because the amount of money needed is so massive. You can't get something from nothing, and everyone can't get something from everyone else.
And yes, the numbers do work. You just need relatively high tax rates (>= 50%) to support the Basic Income -- but no higher than already exist in many European countries.
A family of 4 could live on £12000/year not luxuriously but with the basics, somewhere like Wales. A single person could not live on £3000/year in London.
There's 248 million people ages 16 and older in the US, of which 63% are in the labor force[1]. So 156 million people are available for work (not all of whom are employed).
Total population is about 330 million.
If each of them were to get a basic monthly stipend (this is everyone, including infants) of $1200, that's $396 billion per month in payments.
Per working individual, that's a tax burden of $2538 per month. And that's just for this program - there's also the rest of government to pay for. Military, roads, police + fire protection, and so on. This also assumes that the basic stipend replaces all other existing entitlement and welfare programs. Which isn't likely, because politics.
Yes, the working individual will also receive a stipend payment, reducing their net tax burden to $1338. But for an hourly employee, that comes out to about $8.35 per hour worked that goes to tax. Even with the new $10.10 minimum wage proposal, that leaves them just $1.75/hr as incentive to work, vs. just staying home and living off the stipend.
[1] http://factfinder2.census.gov/faces/tableservices/jsf/pages/...
As it happens, I'm also skeptical of the numbers working out in the Swiss proposal, but they're crazy high.
That gives ~$6500/person. That seems reasonable. Given if you distributed all money evenly worldwide the profit motive would disappear and things would be bought and sold at cost.
But yes, I've gone waaay into sci-fi.
But, back in the real world, Australia basically has one. So you're full of shit.[1]
[0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gross_world_product
[1] http://australia.gov.au/topics/benefits-payments-and-service...
We have a nurturing social safety net and it provides some minimal payments for those who are experiencing hardship. These payments are temporary and a meant to help individuals survive while they get up on their feet again. The selection criteria is quite forgiving because the system is setup to err on the side of overpayments rather than risking people in genuine need to go homeless. Therefore, there are a small group people who take advantage of the system, but it is not designed to be anything like a universal basic income.
