>>Every experiment in UBI says otherwise. Direct cash grants usually lead people to do more work, because now they can do the work they enjoy.
But probably less "meaningful" work, in however society defines meaningful.
>>Also, look around groups of wealthy people. The ones who don't have to work anymore. Sure, some of them live a life of leisure, but many of them still work, because they get bored otherwise.
This is due to earning a return matching their effort. At some point, if enough income is withheld at that level, what's the point? Or, they will leave en-mass to countries more willing to employ entrepreneur muscle. These aren't anecdotes. Look at emigration from USSR, China, Venezuela or others of their scientists, professors, doctors, lawyers, financiers, etc.
I think you're overestimating how much would be paid out. Taxes can go up on the employed by roughly what they receive in UBI, unemployed get UBI instead of unemployment benefits. It all balances out.
I don't think there is a widespread agreement amongst proponents on how things are to be funded. Some want it to be revenue natural, others a wealth tax, others VAT, others via printing money, others a mix.
I'm not sure UBI is the right way to go. But if we are to do it, my own current thinking that you start by trying to keep it neutral in the tax code (so most families get increased taxes that claw back the majority of the UBI value)
But then we need need to account for additional funds needed beyond that:
- Those currently earning less than would be clawed back (net-recipients of UBI)
- Those who we would expect to become net-recipients, that would also cut back on their current earnings.
The latter group, I'd expect to be smaller than some suspect, but still big enough that it needs to taken into account.
If we take the approach that this acts as an income floor (the clawbacks per above), and we set that floor at $40k.
We can see that 33% make less than that from the data. For laziness sake, I'll assume a linear transition from 0% to 33%. That would imply $20k/year at 16%, which is roughly what the data shows. So we can assume an average of 20k UBI for 33% of households as the net benefit.
127,679,100 * $20000 * 0.33 = $843B
Then we need to take into account those that stop earning. So let's round it up to a trillion. Note household income already take into account existing transfers like social security and unemployment benefits so we can't subtract those out as savings.
The US is wealthy enough to raise taxes by a trillion/year. It is something like 5% GDP. But that is a massive increase. It doesn't come for free with "neutral" taxation. On the other hand, we could have a lower floor, but then I don't think we actually get the benefits.
I think that the work that needs to be done, will still get done but it'll be better rewarded (ie it'll be more expensive) - jobs that people don't want to do need to get paid more because employers can't just rely on economic coercion of the poor to force them to do dangerous or boring jobs, they need to remunerate them accordingly - which IMO is how the system should work. Result would probably be that businesses whose only value prop is predicated on cheap labor, will suffer, and businesses whose value prop is predicated on quality, will be rewarded.
EDIT: I do think there is risk that the coercion will become more intensely focused on illegal immigrants and foreign labor to fill in that niche, however, so better safeguards for illegal exploitation probably need to come along with UBI.
But probably less "meaningful" work, in however society defines meaningful.
>>Also, look around groups of wealthy people. The ones who don't have to work anymore. Sure, some of them live a life of leisure, but many of them still work, because they get bored otherwise.
This is due to earning a return matching their effort. At some point, if enough income is withheld at that level, what's the point? Or, they will leave en-mass to countries more willing to employ entrepreneur muscle. These aren't anecdotes. Look at emigration from USSR, China, Venezuela or others of their scientists, professors, doctors, lawyers, financiers, etc.