This is a data-rich analysis of democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang's proposal for a Universal Basic Income. In my view a UBI is going to be needed, sometime. The growth of AI, robotics, self driving vehicles and productivity will mean fewer jobs even as we produce more than enough for everyone. Something is needed to spread the wealth and UBI is one way. This analysis shows it has the additional benefit of being net very progressive not regressive.
I've followed Yang for over a year and heard him on his UBI plan. He knows the subject well.
Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang wants to give every adult citizen $1,000 per month, no strings attached. This idea is called universal basic income (UBI), though Yang calls his a Freedom Dividend, which he plans to fund with new taxes and an option for households to switch away from current benefits.If Yang's plan were implemented, who would come out ahead or behind? How would poverty, inequality, and the deficit change? What benefit programs would be most affected? To answer these questions, I applied the open-source Tax-Calculator software to the Census Bureau's Current Population Survey, combined this with established analyses of the new taxes he proposes, and simulated the effect across the distribution of US households. This analysis is static, meaning it ignores behavioral and macroeconomic responses to tax, income, and deficit changes.While the plan would add $1.4 trillion to the annual deficit, it would be highly progressive, significantly reducing poverty and inequality. 86 percent of households would come out ahead, including 90 percent of those earning under $50,000 and 54 percent of those earning $200,000 or more.
