Comment by Retric

As long as a fixed percentage of the economy is going to UBI there’s natural feedback loops. Fewer people work, UBI goes down and incentives to work increase. However, long term efficiency gains keep pushing up the standard of living for people on UBI which then makes not working more appealing. The specific numbers only matter in the short term if in 500 years 1% of the economy went to UBI people would likely be very well off by modern standards, but still be tempted to work for even more.

There’s a long way between uncomfortable and death here, entitlement spending is already over 10k/person/year and that’s excluding the impact of progressive taxation. Revenue neutral flat tax and a 20+k UBI isn’t unrealistic. A reasonable argument can be made for universal healthcare being part of UBI, but that’s a separate and quite nuanced discussion.

Not that I think there’s any chance of a UBI in the US, but it’s an interesting intellectual exercise.