Altmans vision of the future was a dramatic departure from the present.
What Altman was describing was auniversal basic income system.
And hes not alone in thinking its a good idea.
Credit: Gizmodo
Basic income pilots have become extremely popular in recent years.
By one count, there have been as many as120 pilotsin the U.S. since 2017.
But could a national UBI ever actually work in the way people claim it could?
How much would UBI cost?
When it comes to basic income, the most frequently asked question is about cost.
Its due to the presumably large price tag that many critics argue basic income is prohibitively expensive.
Suppose UBI provided everyone with $10,000 a year.
Even proponents of UBI admit that the cost of the program is the elephant in the room.
That is, according to Widerquist, the $2-3 trillion projections are just bad math.
How would we pay for it?
Theres no getting around it: a basic income system would be funded by new taxes.
The critical question is: What kind of taxes?
There are many different ideas about where the money could come from.
Others havesuggestedthat taxes on inheritances could yield enough revenue to fund it.
Widerquist suggests a tiered system of new taxes that would largely source revenue from Americas richest families.
My most preferred plan is a net benefit to 70% of people, said Widerquist in an email.
Thats 234 million people.
We can reasonably say that half of them benefit a lotthats about 117 million people.
We could then say that about as many people are net beneficiaries who benefit only a little.
Again the two groups together are 70% of people, he said.
Thats another 47 million people.
The top 10% could pay significantly more.
Thats only 23 million people.
Who would benefit most from a UBI?
What a UBI system wouldnt do.
Altman, in his Moores Law piece, predicted much the same.
But if the actual estimates of UBI output are to be believed, these predictions are utter fantasies.
The political problem of making it happen.
That is to say, it wouldnt.
Alternatively, Primus argues that Democrats should focus on protecting and expanding currently existing welfare programs.
People like Stanfords Kline, meanwhile, remain optimistic about UBIs chances.
It was a big program.
Is it too expensive?
But you dont know whether that cat is a kitten or a mountain lion, he said.
Tanner said:
Why not simply abolish the entire thing?
Get rid of welfare, food stamps, Medicaid, housing assistance, unemployment insurance and all the rest.
[Charles] Murray would even throw in Medicare and Social Security.
These programs disincentivize work and promote increased dependency on government handouts, at the expense of individual responsibility.
Are there alternatives?
I asked Primus during our conversation.
Not really, he said.
Another critic of UBI is Anna Coote, a fellow at the British think-tank, the New Economics Foundation.
Instead of basic income, Coote advocates for something she callsuniversal basic services.
Against such drastic incursions against affordability, $1200 a month may not make much of an impact.
However, most of the gains have gone to the top 1 percent.
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