This response makes no sense. We don’t cancel unemployment, social security, etc in these instances. UBI is meant to replace these programs and by giving everyone a guaranteed income even in bad times, it allows some certainty at the household level which reduces stress and keeps consumption higher to keep the economy from melting down into a depression.
Unemployment is pre-funded through unemployment insurance taxes for the working years of the recipient. Social Security is pre-funded through SS taxes for the working years of the recipient.
Those two don't even begin to cover anything near a UBI needs.
Do a simple estimate of how you think UBI would work and cost, and be sure that it doesn't screw those already on SS, and post here. Every single place I've seen the math worked out it needs either massive tax increases, screws the needy already on some form of targeted assistance, or is woefully low.
And I've never seen one that is "universal." All are merely ways to tax the working to fund the unworking.
> Those two don't even begin to cover anything near a UBI needs.
Agreed, but then it's not a black hole as it will be spent, incurring sales taxes, feed into companies, taxation again. So a fair percentage will already feedback.
However, the tax system needs fixing before that and many loopholes need closing and the whole system simplified as the current complexes mess just creates loopholes that those with lots of money can and do abuse. So until the whole tax system is sorted, many things will just fail or become another bolt-on kludge and doomed to fail.
> be sure that it doesn't screw those already on SS, and post here
Not sure how you would discern that, but a rather glib thing to be saying and naive at a time when many will be out of work. Though I'm sure that was not the intention and probably better of with a quote by Margaret Thatcher “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.”
Isn’t one of the key premises of UBI is that ever-increasing will (arguably, has) lead to a massive economic surplus that would then be redistributed via some mechanism(s)?
