Hacker News Reader

Have you actually done the math? The reality is that there aren't enough upper class people to generate sufficient tax revenue for a meaningful UBI. While I do support higher taxes at the upper levels, you can only squeeze people so much before they decide to bail out and move to tax havens.

>The reality is that there aren't enough upper class people to generate sufficient tax revenue for a meaningful UBI.

What makes you think so?

There are a lot of discussion online about the costs/benefits of UBI. This article has an US-centric view on how this could be afforded

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/01/14/budget-neutral-universal-bas...

Interesting. Sounds like it axes Medicare, SS, and a large number of tax deductions (which is how the US implements a lot of policy). I'd love a simplified tax code, but unsure of the SS and Medicare removal. I wonder how that would look for people who are currently collecting, paying in at various stages, etc. That would be a massive windfall for most if the money paid-in was returned.

I'm not sure which veteran benefits they want to get rid of specifically, but this could be a bad idea. One of the main ways to increase economic class if one is poor is to serve in the military and have the pay for college after they get out (yes, the payment could cover part of it, assuming they aren't using it for living expenses which would be mostly covered during their enlistment). The VA is under funded and doesn't have a great record, but that's so highly beneficial to many.

> Sounds like it axes Medicare, SS, and a large number of tax deductions…

… as well various special-purpose programs including housing benefits, SSI, SNAP, TANF, veteran's benefits, WIC, Medicaid, SS Disability, and disaster relief. I'm sure those currently receiving these benefits will be thrilled to find out that they're being replaced by a flat UBI payment of $15k/yr (minus taxes) with no allowance for special circumstances or hardship.

> [SS and Medicare removal] would be a massive windfall for most if the money paid-in was returned.

Undoubtedly, but what are the odds of that happening?

It sounds like you’re being sarcastic, but it will be vastly preferable to avoid the bureaucracy that comes with all those programs. Not to mention the cognitive burden that comes from constantly being means tested.

Average Medicaid expenditures (per year) for persons with disabilities (age 0-64) was $19.7k in 2016[0]. It's probably higher by now. So by cutting Medicaid and replacing it with a flat $15k/year you're reducing benefits to persons with disabilities, on average, by almost $5k/year. Since that's an average, I'm sure there are some who will see much larger cuts and quite a few who will find themselves unable to afford necessary treatments or other costs relating to their disability.

That's just Medicaid; it gets worse when you consider all the other programs being cut.

Even allowing for realistic reductions in bureaucratic overhead, you can't just cut narrowly targeted programs and spread the same amount of money evenly across the entire population without significantly reducing the money available, on average, to the original beneficiaries.

[0] https://www.cms.gov/newsroom/fact-sheets/medicaid-facts-and-...

UBI doesn’t mean every expenditure suddenly becomes out of pocket.

The sensible move would be to keep disability, etc. as a form of insurance where costs are spread across the populace.

> The sensible move would be to keep disability, etc. as a form of insurance where costs are spread across the populace.

And now you're back where you started—you haven't eliminated these need-based programs at all, or reduced the bureaucracy. You've just added the UBI as an extra expense.

It’s not at all or nothing proposition. Your employer probably pays you a salary and offers you disability insurance too.

That's literally what the proposition in the link is - remove these existing programs and tax deductions to pay for the UBI.

I'm skeptical you can actually "avoid the bureaucracy" with UBI. At the end of the day there will still be people who need more aid than the standard UBI can provide (eg. people with mental/physical disabilities). We can't realistically let them fend for themselves, so you still need the bureaucracy to manage those people.

In an ideal world you would subsidize mental/physical assistance instead of giving them more money. It's both easier to do and fairer to those affected.

Yeah... letting the companies that provide those services, making a profit from them, determine who qualifies is probably going to rife with fraud and abuse. At best, you end up with inflated costs due to there being little incentivize keeping costs down, like we see with student loans and college.

A lot of countries nationalised these services since they're essential. Nothing stops the US from doing the same.

That's not what the proposal is suggesting, and not really part of most UBI proposals.

"but it will be vastly preferable"

To whom? The government, sure. The individuals using those programs, probably not. Healthcare costs alone would likely wipe that out (for the demographics using Medicare). Rent in many areas would eat more than half.

Rent is expensive in big cities? Wow, the poor are gonna be so pissed when they find out. /s

Affordable housing is a separate issue and point of concern no matter who is paying.

That's not a separate issue. One of the programs they would cut is housing assistance. So that directly affects it.

You could say that housing costs are a larger issue. However that issue is largely a non-issue for the demographic we are talking about currently since they qualify for stuff like HUD assistance (which would be removed under the plan).

I think the premisr of the proposition is that UBI makes housing assistances superfluous, since UBI should cover basic needs.

That may be the premise, but as stated earlier in this chain, it appears to be false ($15k won't cover healthcare, housing, etc that would be removed under the proposal).

I don’t understand. You think every homeless family gets a $7000 apartment? Do you have any idea what HUD actually spends on vouchers, section 8, etc?

> Do you have any idea what HUD actually spends on vouchers, section 8, etc?

The actual amount varies by region and income, but e.g. the Housing Authority of the City of Los Angeles (which is financed by HUD) says[0]:

> For CY2020, HACLA paid more than $582 Million to private Landlords on behalf of more than 44,000 participant families.

That works out to an average (mean) of $13.2k per year per family—and they're only covering a portion of the rent. A couple living on UBI and no longer receiving Section 8 vouchers would spend about half of two UBI payments making up for the loss of Section 8, while the other $16.8k/year needs to cover the rest of their rent, food, clothing, transportation, medicine, and any other necessary expenses for both of them.

[0] http://home.hacla.org/abouts8

HACLA isn’t solely funded by HUD so the actual figure is less.

Spending 50% of household income is fairly cost burdened, but not unworkable. The same problem exists under the current scheme as well.

Living in a big city affords more opportunities to earn income. Some would use their initial UBI payments to move to cheaper locales. Grants could help.

> HACLA isn’t solely funded by HUD so the actual figure is less.

Over 85% of HACLA's revenues in 2020 came directly from HUD[0]. Another 10% were from other government grants (which would also be cut). The numbers reported before were just for the Section 8 program, which AFAICT is administered by HACLA but fully funded by HUD.

> Spending 50% of household income is fairly cost burdened, but not unworkable.

That 50% is the part paid by Section 8. The part not paid by Section 8 is expected to be about 30% of income, which at the 2020 poverty level for a family of two would be about $5k (30% of $17.2k), so the total rent is more like $20k or 65% of their pooled UBIs. And again, this is just Section 8. If you qualify for Section 8 housing you probably qualify for some of the other programs which are also being eliminated.

> Living in a big city affords more opportunities to earn income.

Possibly, but then again we're talking about people who are already living in these places and still qualify for housing assistance. Telling them to get a (better) job or move somewhere cheaper isn't a viable solution. If these were reasonably solutions with UBI they would also be reasonable solutions without UBI.

> Grants could help.

I hope you're not suggesting federal grants since those, too, would be eliminated under this proposal. And really that just gets back to programs targeting specific needs.

[0] https://online.fliphtml5.com/ctqqu/gmgb/#p=42

> That 50% is the part paid by Section 8. The part not paid by Section 8 is expected to be about 30% of income

An excellent point to keep in mind that receiving assistance doesn’t mean you have no other source of income, so the situation likely would not be as dire as you suggest.

You seem to be hung up on the proposal from the CNBC link? Which is a strawman purposely designed by the right wing think tank AEI with the flaws you’ve keyed in on, so that it can be easily batted down like a strawman should.

"You think every homeless family gets a $7000 apartment?"

No, and it's pretty disingenuous for you to put words in my mouth.

It's not so much what HUD spends as what those individuals would need to pay. $500 is an extremely low estimate that would still mean $6k per year (assuming they live in the cheapest stuff they can find). Average costs in most cities for a studio apartment are generally over $1k, giving about $12k per year.

This is only one of the many things eliminated under the proposal. Healthcare is the real big rock and could bankrupt anyone needing substantial care. Even just premiums run from $150-300 per month for the cheapest plans (depending on various factors).

The article has a chart.

This is a transfer from the very poorest to the middle and upper middle class (how much revenue does a tax on millionaires really accomplish?)

I'll take it because it would benefit me, but that doesn't make it great policy. Also most UBI supporters aren't usually on the same side of an issue as AEI.

The chart shows a slight negative for the very poorest (that are eligible for benefits - it doesn't seem to take into account the people that don't pay taxes, aka the very very poorest, who would presumably not see such a loss).

Although this is fixable by taxing more the middle class if that's what we wish to do (aka, not being "budget-neutral")

"slight negative" is a net loss of what looks like 15k or over 1/3 of the cash value of their current benefits.

> Why the middle class specifically? Upper class could shoulder most of the costs

Reach people have disproportionate political influence so the can carve some exemptions for themselves and they have resources to exploit unintentionally created loopholes. Middle class typically have no ways to avoid taxes.

Lets say we instituted a 100% wealth tax on the 1%, that's 45 trillion if somehow we could get the cash value for their stocks at a normal valuation(which someone would have to buy). How many years does that fund the UBI for until we run out of that money?

See this post https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30248741

That says wiping out all social programs and raising taxes on those over 1m/yr in income would cover 15k/yr.

It seems like 45tn in asset seizures would cover the additional 15k/yr for around 10 years.

But I would be very worried about the impact on capital markets and company formation.

I would immediately leave the US if this kind of seizure got through the House and looked like it might pass the Senate.

The stock market would go to zero as there would be no one capable of buying that stock and pretty much no demand either. People would know that their assets can be seized whenever the government wants. 401k's and retirement accounts would be wiped out. Pension funds would go bankrupt overnight. I feel like this is the scenario that so many overlook when they call for massive wealth taxes or the abolishment of the billionaire / millionaire class.

This is hyperbole. Removing loopholes and taxing the top 5% more will not destroy society. Just like taxing the middle class didn't make them stop working, or made them work shitty jobs just to not pay taxes.

Sure, but we were specifically talking about a 100% wealth rax scenario. Very likely not a realistic scenario

It actually happened not that long ago, in the US.

And the country did not collapsed. It actually entered a era or unparalleled prosperity ( but that had little to do with taxes )

In 1945 tax rate was around 90% IIRC

Honest question : you do understand that a 100% tax rate means that 100% of revenu are taxed correct. ( as opposed to 100% are taken by the state ). Of those 100% only a percentage of it is actually “lost”.

Sorry if it’s obvious but the catastrophic scenario you are describing seems to correspond to “let’s take all the rich folks money, all of it”

Source on high historical tax rate in the US around 1950 https://teachinghistory.org/history-content/ask-a-historian/...

Holy crap how are your comments not greyed out?

Marginal income tax rate of 90% != Wealth tax (for which we haven't even tested constitutionality)

Also, nobody paid close to 90% thanks to generous loop holes and strategic tax avoidance: https://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-nocera-tax-avoidance-...

I don’t know what is the wealth tax you are referring to and I don’t see it referenced in my comment.

I was pointing out a historical period where taxes were setup differently than now. We tend to forget it was the case; and it seems to be out of the collective psyché.

Indeed in 2022 nobody pays close to 90%. I was referring to the 1945 to 1960 period. ( see linked article, nice read )

`wonderwonder` said that a 100% wealth tax was unprecedented and not a realistic scenario.

Then you replied "It actually happened not that long ago, in the US" and cited that the US used to have a 90% marginal income tax bracket.

A 90% marginal income rate is not in the same universe as a 100% wealth tax rate.

I see now. Thanks for pointing it out.

lol, we are on the same page. I am not suggesting it as an real option I am stating it to describe the insanity of the people who think that just taxing the rich will supply all the money we need. I am using the example of a 100% wealth tax to show there is just not enough money to do everything that is desired. That regardless of taxation we would have to print money.

I see. Sorry I guess I’m dense, I completely missed that in your message.