What's the cost of universal basic income? A better question is what's the cost of not having it.
(This is an excerpt from my article titled "How We Can Transform America’s Broken Economic System to Work for EVERYONE". You can read it in full on Medium.
Per citizen calculations are based on 92.8% of the US population being legal citizens.)
The following is a short list of our shared expenditures as a society. On the left is the total cost and on the right is the cost per American citizen.
We spend $2.7 trillion for health care — $9,090 per citizen per year
We spend over $1.4 trillion on crime — $4,713 per citizen per year
We spend $1.3 trillion on Social Security — $4,376 per citizen per year
We spend $1.2 trillion on education — $4,040 per citizen per year
We spend $840 billion on our military — $2,828 per citizen per year
We spend $544 billion on the “empty labor” of workers not actually working while at work — $1,831 per citizen per year
We spend $500 billion on welfare — $1,683 per citizen per year
We’ve spent $260 billion each year since 2001 to wage a “War on Terror” in a way that has increased terrorism — $875 per citizen per year
We spend $200 billion on work presenteeism (people going to work when they shouldn't, like when they're sick, because they feel they have to) — $673 per citizen per year
We waste $180 billion on unpurchased food — $606 per citizen per year
We lose $160 billion by not using our vacation days — $539 per citizen per year
We spend $110 billion on federal corporate subsidies — $370 per citizen per year
We spend $108 billion on the cost of hunger — $364 per citizen per year
We spend at least $100 billion on a patent system that decreases innovation — $337 per citizen per year
We spend $100 billion buying illegal drugs — $337 per citizen per year
We spend $51 billion fighting the buying of illegal drugs — $172 per citizen per year
We spend $92 billion on gambling — $310 per citizen per year
We lose $90 billion commuting to and from work — $303 per citizen per year
We spend $70 billion on the mortgage interest deduction — $236 per citizen per year
We lose $70 billion by not legalizing and taxing marijuana like we do alcohol — $236 per citizen per year
We are spending $1.5 trillion over 30 years for the F-35 — $168 per citizen per year
We actually subtract $53 billion from the economy by using coal power — $178 per citizen per year
We lose $40 billion to suicides (40,000 x $1 million each but the true cost is incalculable) — $135 per citizen per year
We spend $8 billion the Pentagon can’t account for — $27 per citizen per year
We spent about $4 billion in 2014 on our midterm elections — $13 per citizen per year
We spend $2.3 billion in volunteering over 100 million hours of our time at food banks to feed those of whom a majority have jobs but aren’t paid enough to not need food banks — $8 per citizen per year
We spend $40-50 billion on financial fraud — $151 avg per citizen per year
We lose $203 billion on occupational licensing restrictions — $683 per citizen per year
We gave away $130 billion in natural resources to a foreign mining company in 2014 — $438 per citizen
We spend $229 billion on the costs of gun violence — $770 per citizen per year
We spend $71 to $277 billion on the costs of air pollution — $586 avg per citizen per year
We spend over $100 billion on state and federal disaster relief payouts — $337 per citizen per year
We spend $80 billion on state, county, and city subsidies to corporations — $269 per citizen per year
We give $83 billion in interest rate subsidies to the largest banks — $269 per citizen per year
We spend $270 billion more than we need to on the cost of medications — $909 per citizen per year
We give $181 billion to all businesses in the form of special exemptions and exclusions, credits, deductions, deferrals, and preferential tax rates — $609 per citizen per year
We lose $142 billion to corporate tax havens — $478 per citizen per year
We lose $885 billion in lost GDP (5%) due to not paying women the same as men — $2,979 per citizen per year
As a society, we are now spending or throwing away about $11.9 trillion dollars or $40,000 per citizen every year
There exists overlap between some expenditures, and many of these can't be reduced to zero, but the above also represents only a partial list of all expenditures.
This is what we're seemingly entirely okay right now spending or wasting our money on. Somehow, we just don't have a problem with this much money being spent or lost as a society. It's just "the way things are."
To understand how we can reduce these expenditures and losses by more than $12,000 per citizen by spending an additional $12,000 per citizen on basic income, next read "How We Can Transform America’s Broken Economic System to Work for EVERYONE"
Bereh that postingan droe neuh @scottsantes eukk, lage lam kapai are.
Droe kuh hek ku seumike putra kunak peu ek, kakeuh ku tuleh aju nyoe meuharap meurumpok bak si good karma, meunyoe hana jih jok persen bacut sang hana so jok keudroe kuh, jadi nyoe komen lon numpang jak siat, meuah beuh, bek neukira apam syara beh, trimong geunaseh :)
I have no idea what this says, and for some reason, neither does Google Translate.
A truly daunting list, almost like a who's who of what doesn't work in our society. As a former reference librarian, I can imagine how many hours you put into this work, Thank you for it.
Ha! Yeah, compiling data like this certainly takes time, and thank you!
It occurred to me while I was cooking dinner that there might be places that would like to publish your list... I did look at some of your outreach when I first discovered your work... but I don't remember the exact details. What about Good magazine at https://www.good.is/ -- I know they do lists like this one...
most people do not understand a thing about economics, all they care about is that a theory appears logical and promises security. Many still think that money grow on threes actually and cannot even wrap their minds around fractional reserve banking that has been with us for about almost 400 years. If they only knew, they'd say "NO MORE"
unfortunately it will have to collapse first, its a house of cards anyway, in no way this is fixable
whatever the solution presented, it should honestly establish this very quickly
UBI is pro-BIG government, bad things happen that way.
Or, we could just follow the Constitution, respect and adhere to its limits on the powers and authority of the federal government and eliminate almost all of that spending without having to replace it with anything at all.
Let's try that.
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upvoted, resteemed and followed. Great informative post!
Thanks!
Scott
I just want to say that I'm not totally against your position. In fact, I could potentially support it after I see the details of the plan. I think at the very least we should make the first $12,000 tax free even if its not guaranteed. However, I do have a problem with your argument. It's completely unsound and without a sound argument people are going to dismiss your argument and you. There are a couple points here that seem on target such as the welfare cost. Assuming that welfare would be gotten rid of when the basic income started.
The problem is the other items that would not be affected by basic income such as the biggest one, health care. When I was in grad school I lived on $1,000 a month and there was nothing left over for health care. So, basic income will not replace health care.
Another, item is the illegal drug cost. Not sure what this number represents but I got the impression that it was the amount of money spent on illegal drugs. This is an individual cost, not a society cost. Therefore, it will not go away with basic income. If anything it would go up.
My final example is suicide. This is again, an individual cost and will not impact government spending even it it goes away. Also, I don't think that $1,000 a month will have an significant effect on suicide. I did a quick search to find some way of quantifying the effect of income on suicide. Did not find a really solid article for this fact but the one below shows that being single has a 25% increase in risk of suicide and the increase in risk for being in the lowest income quartile was only 8.8%.
http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/doi/pdf/10.1176/appi.ajp.160.4.765
There are many arguments for basic income. Not everyone will agree with all of them.
Did you know that when Dauphin tested a basic income guarantee for 5 years, hospitalization rates decreased by 8.5%? Reduced stress led to better health which led to lower hospital costs. I'm not saying that UBI will negate the cost of health care. I'm saying that UBI will create a healthier population with less need for health care, and thus those costs will go down. One article I've written along these lines is that UBI is like a vaccine.
In regards to the drugs aspect. Drug use is in large part a matter of self-medicating. This too I've written about, and I suggest reading both this and this to gain a better understanding of how UBI will reduce drug usage. If you don't want to read both of those, at least watch this video.
In regards to suicide, yes economic insecurity is responsible for a percentage of suicides. Here's an interesting article to read about the economics of suicide.
Notice that this post is not about the cost to government. It's about the costs to society. There are many costs that aren't seen as costs, which is really a major point of my even compiling all this data in the first place.
One example is shoplifting. You pay this cost through higher prices. Stores include the cost of loss by theft. It's kind of a hidden tax. Another example is your health insurance premium. It's say $400/mo instead of $300/mo because of the people who go into ERs because they had no coverage. That's effectively a $100 cost to you that you don't see as a cost. Does this make sense?
Here's a great example in this article to further clarify that point:
This kind of stuff happens all over the place. Because we refuse to give someone $12,000 in basic income, we end up spending $90,000 on them in a hospital, or $60,000 on them in a prison. As the saying goes, a stitch in time saves nine. Well, UBI is that stitch that can save us a shitload of stitches that we consider par for the course.
I will read these links. However, my point was not to argue against you. I did say that I was potentially a supporter of basic income. My point was that your article over promises and is really an easy target for your opponents. My mention of those 3 points was strictly as an example of your articles weakness. Not a challenge. I just hope you don't damage the cause by trying to drum up support for it.
such an interesting infor, thanks for gathering and sharing with us