Indeed, I think a basic income should probably fall around $6-$8k/yr. It's not enough to live comfortably (especially on your own), but plenty enough to build on.

Ya I've actually had several years here in Idaho where I was able to survive on about $6,000 per year, which was $250 for my half of the rent on a 2 BR apartment plus food and gas. Of course that didn't count my $300/mo student loan payment and $1000/mo credit card payment due to a failed business venture. Debts have accounted for about two thirds of my monthly expenses after college.

BUT, and I only realized this recently, my education has allowed me to live largely outside the traditional workplace. I've worked just under 9 years out of the 18 since I turned 18, with the longest jobless stretches lasting about 3 years. My last office job ended 1 year ago and I've become so busy with online contracting that I don't plan on going back.

So I know that it can be frustrating to hear about fortunes being made by startups and entrepreneurs, but it’s helped me to step back and not look at the money. The vast majority of people have no or nearly no wealth (in the form of assets that provide income). They only have cash flow, and most of that money is wasted on things they don’t need. When you look at the people who really are living on a fixed income below the poverty level, remarkably, they treat it as an asset (like a retirement account), using the disbursements to pay for necessities. So a person on $10,000 per year welfare has the equivalent net worth of something like half a million dollars when you consider taxes. It’s no wonder that they don’t want to give it up for a regular job. And this really, really pisses fiscal conservatives off to no end, because they only see the world through the lens of means testing.

To get to the point, my education has provided me the lifestyle of someone with the equivalent wealth of the government having to shell out half a million dollars. That’s a fantastic return on investment for an ~$80,000 four year degree. If fiscal conservatives were serious about reforming welfare, they would be open to the idea of extending public education four more years to cover college. They would also be open to something that will probably always be unfathomable to them, that money and quality of life can be independent variables.

Cutting social security benefits that pay the retired 10s of Ks per year in order to give everyone, most of whom are by no means poor, 9.5k/yr absolutely is sci fi level crazy talk.

You get it back as tax from the non-poor so you don't actually spend the money. Though if they have a bad year or decide to start a business, or write a novel they are assured that I'll be there for them.

AngrySkillzz proposed funding BI by eliminating other programs (including Social Security). You're saying we don't eliminate those programs and instead fund BI by raising taxes?

I'm sure you can find a basic introduction to the idea you're arguing against somewhere on the web but basically, instead of giving money to the poor and needy, you give it to everyone and those that earn a little give some of it back in tax, at some point you earn enough to give it all back. Those in the latter group cost you nothing, even though you've "given" them x thousand dollars, so dividing (or multiplying) a dollar figure by population isn't accurate.

Oh, so your BI is means tested.

OK ya, what you're arguing for and what most of the other folks around here are arguing for isn't the same thing.

It's a little messy but we already pretty much have what you're talking about with a patchwork of unemployment benefits, welfare, medicaid and various forms of disability insurance.

Means-testing is a wash on average, though: you keep the taxes of higher-income people lower, but then don't give them the cash payment. This works out better for very wealthy people (since tax rates are typically percentage-based, while the payout is a fixed number), but worse for lower-middle-class people, who get means-tested out of the payout but don't make enough to get much tax savings. There's some cross-over point where it's exactly a wash. Under the basic income system the idea is not to means-test it, because means-testing disincentivizes working (you lose your benefit once you make "too much" in other income), and instead just net it out with tax rates above a certain level. So at the crossover point you get a $10k BI but you pay $10k more taxes; below that you come out ahead, and above that you're behind. The current welfare system has the same general properties, but is much more bureaucratic and has more of a "cliff" where you lose the benefit, instead of it just slowly being eaten away by marginal tax rates.

OK sure, but if you're going to that, and not eliminate (or reduce) any current gov't programs then you have to raise taxes. If you want't to give, say 10k to each american that's 3.1 Trillion dollars which is more than the US gov't raised in taxes last year.

The math doesn't work.

Well, yeah, you'd raise taxes, to the point where it nets out on average. You raise everyone's taxes by $10k on average, and give everyone $10k. At the average income it's a wash. At the low end people were already getting welfare and not paying much in taxes, so it's a wash for them too. At the lower-middle-class to middle-class level it reduces the disincentive to work and makes people better off. The only people who really lose out are at the very top, people who make so much money that any percentage-based increase would swamp the fixed gains (which is why, I would guess, they oppose it).