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Comment by tpetricek | Hacker News Reader

The title is misleading in two ways.

First, 60% does not sound like too much (makes you think that 40% agree) until you see that only 2% actually agree with it.

Second, the question is not about UBI in general, but about a very specific proposal: "[U]niversal basic income of $13,000 a year — financed by eliminating all transfer programs (including Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, housing subsidies, household welfare payments, and farm and corporate subsidies)".

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Indeed. A family that qualifies for Medicaid would need to spend the entire $13,000 on healthcare alone if they were trying to get a silver plan (mid-tier health insurance plan in the U.S.) with no subsidies. Since silver plans don't cover as much as Medicaid, low income families would end up spending much more than the UBI they received on healthcare alone.

On the other side, since there's no additional taxes high income earners would simply see their earnings go up by $13,000.

Also worth noting that this plan would get rid of things like renewable energy subsidies.

Yep, terrible title.

"People disagree with implementing an idea in this specific way? They must not like the idea at all, in any circumstance!"

Of course, the only way you could finance a $13 000 UBI is by getting rid of all those other transfer programs, pretty much.

Raising taxes is the best way of financing UBI. Eliminating some transfer programs will help, but eliminating all of them (like Medicare) will cause significant pain and suffering.

Most sane UBI proposals have taxes going up just enough so that taxes on the middle class go up enough to offset the UBI; resulting in no net benefit or cost to the middle class.

To pay all adults in the US (240 million) a UBI of $13,000 would require $3.1 trillion. The entire US federal budget (which is still in deficit by $500 billion) is $3.8 trillion. That can't be made up just with a little bit of increased taxation.

If my taxes increase by $13,000 at the same time as the government gives me a cheque for $13,000, I'm not going to care, I'm just happy knowing that $13,000 is coming in regularly no matter what happens to my job. So the only people with an effective tax increase are the rich, and for a lot less than $3.1 trillion.

Okay, but if you are, on net, not paying in more to the system than you're getting, then someone is going to have to pay that difference. You cannot maintain all those social programs, and a UBI, without those very large tax increases to pay for those who are net UBI consumers.

Certainly. If you work the numbers, you'll find that you can get a workable UBI with hundreds of billions in benefit reductions and hundreds of billions in non-offset tax increases.

Really big numbers, but not crazy unworkable big.

A hundred billion here, a hundred billion there; pretty soon you're talking real money.

Well you knew that they would figure out a way of going after Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid somehow. They'll now sell it as universal basic income, brilliant. Grab yourself some champagne, the elites are going to celebrate.

So 60% of economists disagree, and only 2% agree, with a proposal that would eliminate Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid etc, and this is somehow them "going after" these programs? What are you talking about? They are very broadly against this proposal!

I am with the pitchfork committee.

What does that even mean?

The 60% is irrelevant. I could equally look at the list of economists that they asked and make the ridiculous statement that "17% of economists are women"

> the ridiculous statement that "17% of economists are women"

Fittingly, that statement is not far from the truth. (Women are 28% of economics assistant professors in the US, 22% of associate professors with tenure, and 11-12% of full professors.)

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