- Position1 of 3›
- No, UBI is a bad idea
The financial deficits greatly outweigh the financial benefits when considering the immense public costs of UBI. Increased tax rates as well as an inappropriate allocation of funds away from public health and education toward UBI creates significant disadvantages and budget deficits directly affecting public life.
The argument
Proponents of this position argue that the case against universal basic income can be made on the public accounts alone, without reference to its effects on work or on welfare. Implementing UBI at a level where the guaranteed income would ensure sufficient quality of life for recipients would mean spending enormous amounts of public funds, and that follows from the design of the policy rather than from any detail of its administration: the payment goes to everyone, and it has to be large enough to live on, so the total is the cost of a liveable income multiplied by the population entitled to it. A commitment on that scale, on this view, would create equally enormous budget deficits. The money then has to come from somewhere, and the argument holds that there are only two places to find it. In order to pay for a UBI programme the government would have to source the funds by increasing taxes, or by reallocating funds from other large public programmes, or both. The second route is where proponents locate the sharpest objection. The programmes large enough to release sums of the required size are the ones that matter most — health or education among them — and on this argument the expenditures there are more important than an unconditional cash transfer, because such programmes provide things that a recipient cannot straightforwardly buy for themselves out of a monthly payment. The conclusion drawn is one of priorities under a hard constraint. Public funds are finite, the sums a meaningful basic income requires are very large, and all of that money must either be raised in tax or taken from something the state is currently doing. On that reckoning the cost of UBI to the public is simply too high, and proponents regard a policy whose price is set that way as financially irresponsible rather than merely ambitious.
Context
UBI requires a lot of public money to function. The funding for UBI programs has to come from somewhere, which may mean the cost of these programs is prohibitive.
Premises
Counter-arguments
1. The tax increases needed to support UBI are exaggerated and are feasible given current income distributions. UBI would also make many current public welfare programs unnecessary, freeing up that funding without any loss of essential services.
Rejecting the premises
Framing
The financial costs that UBI entails for the state surpass its effectiveness.