Seattle gave low-income residents $500 a month no strings attached. Employment rates nearly doubled. - eviltoast
A guaranteed basic income program pilot in Seattle gave 102 low-income residents $500 monthly. Employment among the participants nearly doubled.
  • A Seattle basic income pilot gave low-income residents $500 a month, nearly doubling employment rates.
  • Some participants reported getting new housing, while others saw their employment incomes rise.
  • Basic income pilots nationwide have seen noteworthy success, despite conservative opposition.
  • ObjectivityIncarnate@lemmy.world
    27·
    7 months ago

    Absolutely they would. Everyone would.

    Of course taxes would rise to cover it, so the average person would be absolutely no better off than they are now.

    That’s actually incredibly optimistic, imo.

    $500 a month is $6000 a year.

    If we gave that amount of UBI to all working age Americans (rounded down for easy math, numbers 200 million), that’s a price tag of $1.2 trillion, every year.

    That’s slightly more than the amount the US spends on welfare programs annually. The entire federal budget is about $6.2 trillion, so this would mean an increase of almost 20%. Where could we possibly get that much more tax revenue?

    • Maggoty@lemmy.world
      102·
      7 months ago

      You’re getting half that back every year. You forgot that part. So it only cost 600 million a year. In fact that means we could kick it to a thousand a month and still be close to our current welfare budget. Find the number that matches exactly, (something like 928) and we can match our current spending while giving poor Americans ~$11,000 a year.

      And the government smaller thing actually works here too. You’d think the conservatives would love this! Unless, it’s actually about hurting people isn’t it? Was smaller government just code for hurting people?