Guaranteed Minimum Income. One of the many very bad economic ideas pushed by.......Richard Nixon!
Wow. Of course we never tried it. Let’s think about it for a moment....we would not need unemployment, welfare, food stamps, social security, Obamaphones, reduced housing, free medical and a lot of other bennies......if it was 30K a year. I bet we would come out even due to all the bennies we give out.
According to Cato: “The federal government spent $3.9 trillion in 2013, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA). Transfers were the largest spending activity at $1.98 trillion, followed by purchases at $571 billion, aid to the states at $510 billion, interest at $414 billion, and compensation at $407 billion."
Let’s see, $1.98 trillion divided by 112 million households is $17,679 currently being provided per household on transfers without even counting the compensation of all the staff administering that bureaucracy. Additionally, consider the disincentives of current means-tested benefits. I have personally heard people say that they had to quit a job after receiving notice that they would now lose benefits. The loss of benefits would have exceed the income from working. How many single-parent households are encouraged because of the loss of benefits if they were married to the baby-daddy? Maybe a minimum income wouldn’t be so bad after all. I'm starting to consider that it might be preferable to the myriad of welfare programs we have and the resulting disincentives.