This is true that UBI would be expensive, but consider that we would be able to shutter essentially every bureaucracy that distributes aid domestically. Consider also that when the government has...
It is an extremely expensive endeavour to give everyone at the very least enough for a decent living. Even if we can avoid a rampant increase of prices due to the economic bottom floor being raised, it is not a cost a society can burden without some drastic increase in governmental revenue.
This is true that UBI would be expensive, but consider that we would be able to shutter essentially every bureaucracy that distributes aid domestically. Consider also that when the government has been especially motivated, they've been able to create incredible amounts of money. How much money was created out of thin air for 'quantitative easing' after the financial crisis? How much have we thrown away for essentially no benefit in Iraq and Afghanistan? The money is there, it's our priorities that need to get there.
It will lead to a decrease in amount worked, especially among the young and those who do not enjoy their employment. Some might use UBI as a potential to get a dream job, sure. But as sad as it is, we need an employed population, even the ones who hate their jobs, to sustain a system like UBI.
So essentially, our system is only sustained by masses of unwilling workers? Work will need to be more meaningful. Some industries will need to adjust, especially those who exploit low wage workers. I see that as a good thing. More automation and offshoring may fill in the gaps.
Automation will remove a ton of jobs, removing much income for the government. One can argue you should just drastically increase taxation on those who own automated systems. But one thing with automated systems is that they can operate nearly anywhere. Tax it too heavy, and it will be moved somewhere more affordable.
Any sizable company already can find less expensive and less regulated markets to do business. There are systems like Value Added Taxation that make it a lot harder to dodge taxes by moving offices overseas. And if they want to sell their product in the US, we can punish them if they want to move. There just needs to be the political will to do so.
It will lead to a new bottom economy.
This to me is the scariest possibility - that UBI is just barely sufficient to get by, and jobs are more scarce. It's something that can be addressed by making smart, gradual changes as issues arise. UBI hasn't been shown to jump start inflation as far as I'm aware.
UBI isn't just feasible, it's an idea whose time has come. My greatest fear is that it's hijacked by the corporatocracy and just a pittance. There is a quite significant cultural barrier in the US that holds is back from creating strong safety nets and that culture would need to completely change.
From a disability perspective, I actually consider that a potential downside. (You may not have meant Medicaid and SSI/SSDI, but I've seen other people claiming that these could be done away with...
This is true that UBI would be expensive, but consider that we would be able to shutter essentially every bureaucracy that distributes aid domestically.
From a disability perspective, I actually consider that a potential downside. (You may not have meant Medicaid and SSI/SSDI, but I've seen other people claiming that these could be done away with if UBI existed.) Many disabled people encounter a higher cost of living even if you ignore higher healthcare costs, so any UBI meant to level the playing field would still leave disabled people at a financial disadvantage, especially since many of us can't choose to work full time (or at all) to make up the difference.
That's not to say UBI wouldn't necessarily be a step up. I'm guessing that UBI would be more than the current maximum SSI benefit (which falls well below the poverty level). And it wouldn't go away if a disabled person worked. UBI also wouldn't depend on a super long process that ends up denying people with legitimate disabilities; I would personally love it if I didn't have to consider applying for SSDI to fill the gap in my finances, since qualifying will be very hard based on my chronic illness and the fact I can work part time.
But still. I am very wary; I want disabled folks to be able to live independently and in comfort, not find themselves still in poverty because their expenses exceed those of abled people and they cannot work.
You'd be surprised how much people like money It's more likely they'd adjust their lifestyle to meet their new income, which might actually generate more jobs.
if we had a scenario where everyone suddenly stopped working if they disliked their jobs, you'd see chaos.
You'd be surprised how much people like money
It's more likely they'd adjust their lifestyle to meet their new income, which might actually generate more jobs.
I'm on mobile and it's outside of my area of expertise, but at least in the US we spend massive amounts on this. Just some very rough math, it would cost 2.6T to give every adult in the US $20k....
That is a good point, but how much is that of a budget?
I'm on mobile and it's outside of my area of expertise, but at least in the US we spend massive amounts on this. Just some very rough math, it would cost 2.6T to give every adult in the US $20k. Our budget is 4.4T and revenues are 3.4T. Consider also that for someone making over UBI, you can theoretically raise their taxes by the UBI amount and it's a wash. Consider that for every bureaucrat making $100k/yr you can fund five UBIs. There's also savings from not having to pay for office buildings, internet, etc. The revenues and savings are there.
I am not from USA, so I do not know. But wasn't that money from treasuries, given out as bonds and loans that in the end was paid back? I am sure military spending is a large post that could be used for other things, but does that apply to other countries that maybe don't have such posts?
It's not quite as simple as printing money, but that is basically what they did. They gave incredible amounts (trillions of dollars) to banks so that banks would continue to extend credit which fuels the economy. It's very complex so there is some more nuance, but that is the bite-sized version. For countries that spend less on their military than the US, they also provide more generous safety nets that would be streamlined with UBI. I don't really know enough about other country's budgets to be more specific though
Ideally not, but if we had a scenario where everyone suddenly stopped working if they disliked their jobs
This seems like an easy fix, phase in UBI instead of suddenly releasing it. This would also allow for a winding down of administrative agencies so those folks aren't completely hosed too.
It's not really tax dodging if you move your business elsewhere, assuming you pay taxes where you move.
That's not really what happens though, they move parts of the business elsewhere and use creative accounting to move profits from one piece to another that has lower taxes. You can Google terms like 'double Irish' or 'double Irish with a Dutch sandwich' if you want to learn more, but it's easy to get lost in the weeds.
Would you punish companies that move out of the USA?
Let's say a company decides they don't like to pay taxes for UBI and they move their manufacturing overseas. A border adjustment could be applied so that they are not actually saving money from the move. They can still sell their product in the US and if they find other efficiencies they can even benefit. Same with automation. There are, as you point out, other countries with less taxes or regulation so we must infer then that the decision on where to locate a business has more nuance. I don't think higher taxes (along with increased benefits) would cause every company to decide to move.
I'd disagree with your statement for one reason, assuming we're talking about on a national level; money for federal governments doesn't work like money for individuals and state governments. In...
I'd disagree with your statement for one reason, assuming we're talking about on a national level; money for federal governments doesn't work like money for individuals and state governments. In these latter cases, your money supply is finite; you have x amount of dollars, and everything is a zero sum game. If you cut your income or increase your spending elsewhere, you need to cut your spending in another location to make up the difference. In contrast, on a federal level, we use a fiat currency; the money supply is essentially unlimited, the only thing that matters is inflation / deflation. So long as people trust the currency and it retains its spending power, you can print as much as you need.
Because of this, the thinking on UBI shouldn't be "where are we going to find the money", it should instead be "how are we going to prevent this from causing widespread inflation". I'm not smart enough to do so unfortunately, my economics knowledge is limited to my high school class ^~^" but it should be in that direction.
For what it's worth, I personally think a scenario of a limited UBI but coupled with guarantees for basic rights - housing, medical care, food - would work better. These wouldn't risk inflation nearly as much, and as the government has shown with Medicare, it's cheaper to directly fund these services then to try to rely on private industry to sort it out in many cases.
UBI, or whatever you name it, is something that has been keeping me thinking for a while. I am not a specialist of these sorts of things, so I won't pretend to give authoritative answers, but I'm...
UBI, or whatever you name it, is something that has been keeping me thinking for a while. I am not a specialist of these sorts of things, so I won't pretend to give authoritative answers, but I'm willing to share my thoughts.
First, I'd like to see an economic, numerical model. It would certainly change significantly the way money flows in society, and I suppose we can't just guess the effects. I would guess that there exist some computational model in some labs ?
I'll go on with a hypothesis, which I acknowledge as quite unconventional : that unemployed people are productive. Bear with me a little. Under communism, unemployement was illegal in Eastern Europe. The state provided employement for every citizen. On the other hand, workers had little to say in their career choices, an all in all the economy was inefficient. And I'm not even talking about civil rights. When these countries converted to democracy, and to market economy, in the early 1990s, their overall standard of living rose very significantly. The downside of course was the emergence of a large unemployement. At the micro level, we all had to deal with a boss or a coworker who was clearly not the right person in the right place. Labour laws and unions permitting, this sort of situation usually ends in dismisal. The organization becomes more efficient, the surviving workers are happier, everybody benefits from it, except of course the person being dismissed. UBI could help misfits to quit instead of lingering in an awkward position.
On with you points.
It is an extremely expensive endeavour
It would be if the amount of money circulating in the economy was fixed and finite. It is not : money is created and destructed all the time. Increase of the money supply is called inflation : it is a good thing when it parallels the growth of production, and a bad thing when it exceeds it.
Nowadays, with our automated factories and immaterial goods, the marginal cost of an increase of production tends toward zero. If the money supplies is increased carefully, and if the markets anticipate it carefully, UBI would simply result of an increase of the GDP without the nefarious side effects of excessive inflation such as increasing prices and higher expectations on salaries.
See ? If done well, UBI could pay for itself, then some.
a rampant increase of prices due to the economic bottom floor being raised
Still assuming a fixed money supply, are we ? It would seem that here we also assume a finite supply of things to buy. When everything was made by hand, when the plows were drawn by oxen, the supply was finite. It is of course not infinite now, but we are more often on the verge of overproduction than in fear of scarcity.
It will lead to a decrease in amount worked
That's the other way around. What makes UBI desirable is that the amount worked has been steadily declining in the last fifty years, thanks to machines, fertilizers and delocalization.
Automation will remove a ton of jobs, removing much income for the government
It will not, it does, irrespective of UBI.
Now, taxes levied on salaries are only a fraction of the state's income. Company pay taxes based on their turnover, not their headcount. VAT is a big chunk in this mix.
So, with more money circulating, buying more things and spuring the growth of the GDP, the state's income would most likely increase.
It will lead to a new bottom economy ...
I am not sure I get this topic, or maybe there are several ?
I guess that there is something about the well-known threshold effect. If working makes one only better off than not working, people are trapped at the bottom. This effect is well known with all sorts of benefits, it is not specific to UBI, and needs to be worked out anyway.
On housing :
UBI would undoubtly increase the demand for quality dwellings. I can see two possible outcome. In one scenario, it would drive the rent up, and everybody looses, except the landlords. On another scenario, this inscreased demand, and the guarantee that rent will be paid when due, is an incentive for construction. Here, everybody wins, including the landlords.
Finally there remains one very big question.
In developped nations, various wellfare program exist, which in the end already function like a UBI of sorts. If UBI exists, what do we do with these ?
Change human nature. I am not worried about the poor I would hope that it helps them and think it might initially. I am worried about those who will exploit those who are poor. I am worried that...
Change human nature.
I am not worried about the poor I would hope that it helps them and think it might initially.
I am worried about those who will exploit those who are poor. I am worried that this will deepen the divide between classes not lessen it. It will institutionalize class structure, and grow the parasitic nature of some of capitalism less savory aspects.
I would argue that a properly implemented UBI should tax the upper income earners hard enough that the "upper" classes now have a ceiling on how far above average income they can go. It should...
I would argue that a properly implemented UBI should tax the upper income earners hard enough that the "upper" classes now have a ceiling on how far above average income they can go.
It should flatten the class hierarchy and raise the bottom. UBI is not a utopian measure, it is a stopgap until we can attain a classless society. Doesn't mean that it isn't worth pursuing.
I worry that is like saying socialism properly implemented.... Any system people will look to game/take advantage of, if you design your system with those things in mind, the better your system...
properly implemented UBI
I worry that is like saying socialism properly implemented....
Any system people will look to game/take advantage of, if you design your system with those things in mind, the better your system will respond in the real world.
While income taxes are currently too low for people who are worth over 100 million (should be taxed at 75% or higher), income taxes in general are a bad method of gathering taxes for reasons...
it is not a cost a society can burden without some drastic increase in governmental revenue.
While income taxes are currently too low for people who are worth over 100 million (should be taxed at 75% or higher), income taxes in general are a bad method of gathering taxes for reasons you've outlined in other points. A better way to raise taxes for a UBI would be something like LVT or transaction taxes.
It will lead to a decrease in amount worked, especially among the young and those who do not enjoy their employment.
This is largely a good thing. We (as a society) want people to do valuable, fulfilling jobs at good wages. In a world with UBI, "shitty" jobs will have to pay more to entice people to do them.
Automation will remove a ton of jobs, removing much income for the government.
Yes, but that is irrelevant to UBI. Changing the tax system will go a long ways to preventing this problem.
It will lead to a new bottom economy. You already see this in places where for instance subsidized housing is capped to a certain amount. Any kind of hole is then advertised to such an amount, leading to an economy where the struggling (or exclusively UBI dependent in this example) lives far worse off than those who don't. Further creating a split, making it difficult to work your way up. If everyone can afford 700 euros, why ask for 500 in rent?
This is only the case in places where housing availability is the limiting factor. If there's more available rentals than renters, there will naturally be competition for those renters (because vacant apartments generate $0 in revenue compared to an occupied rental). Plus with a UBI, people would be able to more easily be able to move to cheaper parts of the country, because they won't be dependant on an employer to provide their basic necessities.
I think some sort of UBI will become necessary if we want to avoid dystopian societies with larger and larger gaps between the wealthy and the poor. Due to technological advances allowing greater...
I think some sort of UBI will become necessary if we want to avoid dystopian societies with larger and larger gaps between the wealthy and the poor.
Due to technological advances allowing greater productivity at lower costs, humanity is moving toward a post-scarcity society where, collectively, we have sufficient resources to allow everyone to have a reasonable standard of living, assuming the resources are distributed equitably. This advancement is an amazing thing and standards of living have never been higher, at least for the wealthy. The problem, though, is that technological automation drastically reduces the price of certain kinds of labor (mostly repetitive "unskilled" work) and people in those labor markets can no longer compete and earn a living with that kind of labor. Of course, with new advances there come new opportunities as well, but as automation advances, new opportunities will often require more technically advanced skillsets leaving behind those who do not have the capacity or education to obtain these skills. As a result, without some sort of UBI, society will likely stratify even further into the ultra-wealthy class of those who own the automation, the tech-savvy working class who make decent money developing automation technology, and everyone else who are either unemployed or work in some kind of artistic or service-oriented market that is resistant to automation.
In a post-scarcity society, the main problem with UBI is not that it's too expensive, but that it requires a major shift in how society thinks about employment and the value of individuals aside from their labor capacity. The idea that "if any would not work, neither should he eat" is pretty deeply ingrained and causes serious problems if/when we get to the point that the market value labor for a large percentage of people falls well short of the cost required to live. I don't know what you can do to remedy that unless you distribute at least some resources to those who haven't "earned" it.
As other have said UBI should not be done in isolation, their are already a vast number of systems in place to provide aid to low income individuals. UBI should be used as a substitute to some of...
As other have said UBI should not be done in isolation, their are already a vast number of systems in place to provide aid to low income individuals. UBI should be used as a substitute to some of these programs, this is where the majority of the money would come from.
UBI will definitely be expensive, but we have the funds without having to create any additional money, which would avoid causing more inflation. In the US, we could do away with welfare assistance...
UBI will definitely be expensive, but we have the funds without having to create any additional money, which would avoid causing more inflation.
In the US, we could do away with welfare assistance (as this is another form of welfare), there's half a trillion right there. We could reroute some money from SS/Medicare which aggregates to well over a trillion dollars. We also have many other government projects we could siphon money out of that are ineffiently using funds.
Additionally, we could increase taxes to fund the rest. There is some decent amount of wiggle room here as taxes were significantly cut this year, especially for rich individuals and corporations - corporate tax dropped from 35% to 21%, that's huge.
On top of all of that, UBI doesn't have to be as high as you're indicating. It doesn't have to total enough to be a liveable wage, it could start out as low as $5k-$10k per person to serves more as an income supplement.
And I just had an idea. Maybe people could have the option to forgo their UBI (to some people, $10k is nothing) so it could be recycled into the system, although I'm not sure how successful that would be tbh.
This is true that UBI would be expensive, but consider that we would be able to shutter essentially every bureaucracy that distributes aid domestically. Consider also that when the government has been especially motivated, they've been able to create incredible amounts of money. How much money was created out of thin air for 'quantitative easing' after the financial crisis? How much have we thrown away for essentially no benefit in Iraq and Afghanistan? The money is there, it's our priorities that need to get there.
So essentially, our system is only sustained by masses of unwilling workers? Work will need to be more meaningful. Some industries will need to adjust, especially those who exploit low wage workers. I see that as a good thing. More automation and offshoring may fill in the gaps.
Any sizable company already can find less expensive and less regulated markets to do business. There are systems like Value Added Taxation that make it a lot harder to dodge taxes by moving offices overseas. And if they want to sell their product in the US, we can punish them if they want to move. There just needs to be the political will to do so.
This to me is the scariest possibility - that UBI is just barely sufficient to get by, and jobs are more scarce. It's something that can be addressed by making smart, gradual changes as issues arise. UBI hasn't been shown to jump start inflation as far as I'm aware.
UBI isn't just feasible, it's an idea whose time has come. My greatest fear is that it's hijacked by the corporatocracy and just a pittance. There is a quite significant cultural barrier in the US that holds is back from creating strong safety nets and that culture would need to completely change.
From a disability perspective, I actually consider that a potential downside. (You may not have meant Medicaid and SSI/SSDI, but I've seen other people claiming that these could be done away with if UBI existed.) Many disabled people encounter a higher cost of living even if you ignore higher healthcare costs, so any UBI meant to level the playing field would still leave disabled people at a financial disadvantage, especially since many of us can't choose to work full time (or at all) to make up the difference.
That's not to say UBI wouldn't necessarily be a step up. I'm guessing that UBI would be more than the current maximum SSI benefit (which falls well below the poverty level). And it wouldn't go away if a disabled person worked. UBI also wouldn't depend on a super long process that ends up denying people with legitimate disabilities; I would personally love it if I didn't have to consider applying for SSDI to fill the gap in my finances, since qualifying will be very hard based on my chronic illness and the fact I can work part time.
But still. I am very wary; I want disabled folks to be able to live independently and in comfort, not find themselves still in poverty because their expenses exceed those of abled people and they cannot work.
You'd be surprised how much people like money
It's more likely they'd adjust their lifestyle to meet their new income, which might actually generate more jobs.
I'm on mobile and it's outside of my area of expertise, but at least in the US we spend massive amounts on this. Just some very rough math, it would cost 2.6T to give every adult in the US $20k. Our budget is 4.4T and revenues are 3.4T. Consider also that for someone making over UBI, you can theoretically raise their taxes by the UBI amount and it's a wash. Consider that for every bureaucrat making $100k/yr you can fund five UBIs. There's also savings from not having to pay for office buildings, internet, etc. The revenues and savings are there.
It's not quite as simple as printing money, but that is basically what they did. They gave incredible amounts (trillions of dollars) to banks so that banks would continue to extend credit which fuels the economy. It's very complex so there is some more nuance, but that is the bite-sized version. For countries that spend less on their military than the US, they also provide more generous safety nets that would be streamlined with UBI. I don't really know enough about other country's budgets to be more specific though
This seems like an easy fix, phase in UBI instead of suddenly releasing it. This would also allow for a winding down of administrative agencies so those folks aren't completely hosed too.
That's not really what happens though, they move parts of the business elsewhere and use creative accounting to move profits from one piece to another that has lower taxes. You can Google terms like 'double Irish' or 'double Irish with a Dutch sandwich' if you want to learn more, but it's easy to get lost in the weeds.
Let's say a company decides they don't like to pay taxes for UBI and they move their manufacturing overseas. A border adjustment could be applied so that they are not actually saving money from the move. They can still sell their product in the US and if they find other efficiencies they can even benefit. Same with automation. There are, as you point out, other countries with less taxes or regulation so we must infer then that the decision on where to locate a business has more nuance. I don't think higher taxes (along with increased benefits) would cause every company to decide to move.
I'd disagree with your statement for one reason, assuming we're talking about on a national level; money for federal governments doesn't work like money for individuals and state governments. In these latter cases, your money supply is finite; you have x amount of dollars, and everything is a zero sum game. If you cut your income or increase your spending elsewhere, you need to cut your spending in another location to make up the difference. In contrast, on a federal level, we use a fiat currency; the money supply is essentially unlimited, the only thing that matters is inflation / deflation. So long as people trust the currency and it retains its spending power, you can print as much as you need.
Because of this, the thinking on UBI shouldn't be "where are we going to find the money", it should instead be "how are we going to prevent this from causing widespread inflation". I'm not smart enough to do so unfortunately, my economics knowledge is limited to my high school class ^~^" but it should be in that direction.
For what it's worth, I personally think a scenario of a limited UBI but coupled with guarantees for basic rights - housing, medical care, food - would work better. These wouldn't risk inflation nearly as much, and as the government has shown with Medicare, it's cheaper to directly fund these services then to try to rely on private industry to sort it out in many cases.
UBI, or whatever you name it, is something that has been keeping me thinking for a while. I am not a specialist of these sorts of things, so I won't pretend to give authoritative answers, but I'm willing to share my thoughts.
First, I'd like to see an economic, numerical model. It would certainly change significantly the way money flows in society, and I suppose we can't just guess the effects. I would guess that there exist some computational model in some labs ?
I'll go on with a hypothesis, which I acknowledge as quite unconventional : that unemployed people are productive. Bear with me a little. Under communism, unemployement was illegal in Eastern Europe. The state provided employement for every citizen. On the other hand, workers had little to say in their career choices, an all in all the economy was inefficient. And I'm not even talking about civil rights. When these countries converted to democracy, and to market economy, in the early 1990s, their overall standard of living rose very significantly. The downside of course was the emergence of a large unemployement. At the micro level, we all had to deal with a boss or a coworker who was clearly not the right person in the right place. Labour laws and unions permitting, this sort of situation usually ends in dismisal. The organization becomes more efficient, the surviving workers are happier, everybody benefits from it, except of course the person being dismissed. UBI could help misfits to quit instead of lingering in an awkward position.
On with you points.
It would be if the amount of money circulating in the economy was fixed and finite. It is not : money is created and destructed all the time. Increase of the money supply is called inflation : it is a good thing when it parallels the growth of production, and a bad thing when it exceeds it.
Nowadays, with our automated factories and immaterial goods, the marginal cost of an increase of production tends toward zero. If the money supplies is increased carefully, and if the markets anticipate it carefully, UBI would simply result of an increase of the GDP without the nefarious side effects of excessive inflation such as increasing prices and higher expectations on salaries.
See ? If done well, UBI could pay for itself, then some.
Still assuming a fixed money supply, are we ? It would seem that here we also assume a finite supply of things to buy. When everything was made by hand, when the plows were drawn by oxen, the supply was finite. It is of course not infinite now, but we are more often on the verge of overproduction than in fear of scarcity.
That's the other way around. What makes UBI desirable is that the amount worked has been steadily declining in the last fifty years, thanks to machines, fertilizers and delocalization.
It will not, it does, irrespective of UBI.
Now, taxes levied on salaries are only a fraction of the state's income. Company pay taxes based on their turnover, not their headcount. VAT is a big chunk in this mix.
So, with more money circulating, buying more things and spuring the growth of the GDP, the state's income would most likely increase.
I am not sure I get this topic, or maybe there are several ?
I guess that there is something about the well-known threshold effect. If working makes one only better off than not working, people are trapped at the bottom. This effect is well known with all sorts of benefits, it is not specific to UBI, and needs to be worked out anyway.
On housing :
UBI would undoubtly increase the demand for quality dwellings. I can see two possible outcome. In one scenario, it would drive the rent up, and everybody looses, except the landlords. On another scenario, this inscreased demand, and the guarantee that rent will be paid when due, is an incentive for construction. Here, everybody wins, including the landlords.
Finally there remains one very big question.
In developped nations, various wellfare program exist, which in the end already function like a UBI of sorts. If UBI exists, what do we do with these ?
Change human nature.
I am not worried about the poor I would hope that it helps them and think it might initially.
I am worried about those who will exploit those who are poor. I am worried that this will deepen the divide between classes not lessen it. It will institutionalize class structure, and grow the parasitic nature of some of capitalism less savory aspects.
I would argue that a properly implemented UBI should tax the upper income earners hard enough that the "upper" classes now have a ceiling on how far above average income they can go.
It should flatten the class hierarchy and raise the bottom. UBI is not a utopian measure, it is a stopgap until we can attain a classless society. Doesn't mean that it isn't worth pursuing.
I worry that is like saying socialism properly implemented....
Any system people will look to game/take advantage of, if you design your system with those things in mind, the better your system will respond in the real world.
While income taxes are currently too low for people who are worth over 100 million (should be taxed at 75% or higher), income taxes in general are a bad method of gathering taxes for reasons you've outlined in other points. A better way to raise taxes for a UBI would be something like LVT or transaction taxes.
This is largely a good thing. We (as a society) want people to do valuable, fulfilling jobs at good wages. In a world with UBI, "shitty" jobs will have to pay more to entice people to do them.
Yes, but that is irrelevant to UBI. Changing the tax system will go a long ways to preventing this problem.
This is only the case in places where housing availability is the limiting factor. If there's more available rentals than renters, there will naturally be competition for those renters (because vacant apartments generate $0 in revenue compared to an occupied rental). Plus with a UBI, people would be able to more easily be able to move to cheaper parts of the country, because they won't be dependant on an employer to provide their basic necessities.
I think some sort of UBI will become necessary if we want to avoid dystopian societies with larger and larger gaps between the wealthy and the poor.
Due to technological advances allowing greater productivity at lower costs, humanity is moving toward a post-scarcity society where, collectively, we have sufficient resources to allow everyone to have a reasonable standard of living, assuming the resources are distributed equitably. This advancement is an amazing thing and standards of living have never been higher, at least for the wealthy. The problem, though, is that technological automation drastically reduces the price of certain kinds of labor (mostly repetitive "unskilled" work) and people in those labor markets can no longer compete and earn a living with that kind of labor. Of course, with new advances there come new opportunities as well, but as automation advances, new opportunities will often require more technically advanced skillsets leaving behind those who do not have the capacity or education to obtain these skills. As a result, without some sort of UBI, society will likely stratify even further into the ultra-wealthy class of those who own the automation, the tech-savvy working class who make decent money developing automation technology, and everyone else who are either unemployed or work in some kind of artistic or service-oriented market that is resistant to automation.
In a post-scarcity society, the main problem with UBI is not that it's too expensive, but that it requires a major shift in how society thinks about employment and the value of individuals aside from their labor capacity. The idea that "if any would not work, neither should he eat" is pretty deeply ingrained and causes serious problems if/when we get to the point that the market value labor for a large percentage of people falls well short of the cost required to live. I don't know what you can do to remedy that unless you distribute at least some resources to those who haven't "earned" it.
As other have said UBI should not be done in isolation, their are already a vast number of systems in place to provide aid to low income individuals. UBI should be used as a substitute to some of these programs, this is where the majority of the money would come from.
UBI will definitely be expensive, but we have the funds without having to create any additional money, which would avoid causing more inflation.
In the US, we could do away with welfare assistance (as this is another form of welfare), there's half a trillion right there. We could reroute some money from SS/Medicare which aggregates to well over a trillion dollars. We also have many other government projects we could siphon money out of that are ineffiently using funds.
Additionally, we could increase taxes to fund the rest. There is some decent amount of wiggle room here as taxes were significantly cut this year, especially for rich individuals and corporations - corporate tax dropped from 35% to 21%, that's huge.
On top of all of that, UBI doesn't have to be as high as you're indicating. It doesn't have to total enough to be a liveable wage, it could start out as low as $5k-$10k per person to serves more as an income supplement.
And I just had an idea. Maybe people could have the option to forgo their UBI (to some people, $10k is nothing) so it could be recycled into the system, although I'm not sure how successful that would be tbh.