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  3. Canada finally reveals the results of its universal basic income experiment

Canada finally reveals the results of its universal basic income experiment

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  • C CanadaRocks

    You’re looking at one tax. If you look at ALL Canadian taxes, income tax, provincial taxes, sales tax, import taxes, fuel taxes, property taxes, health services taxes, business taxes Canadians actually pay about HALF of their gross income in taxes. We are f’n taxed to death in Canada.

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    bcsven@lemmy.ca
    wrote on last edited by
    #79

    I don’t get your math. Here in BC my property tax is about $1500 on a 2 bedroom condo. Maybe 1-2% of my income. With deductions my tax is about 13% since my wife doesn’t earn a huge amount but even if single it might be 20%, there is no health insurance fee as its baked into taxes. We aren’t paying PST on food. So your claim is my other 15-20% tax means I’m paying 30% tax on everything else I buy?

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    • L lefantome@programming.dev

      Many middle class Canadian pay 25% or more just in income tax. Then you have to add sales taxes, property taxes, and the rest.

      I would say he is about right.

      The top income tax bracket is over 50%. If you are very high income, you can pay well over 30% just in income tax (overall).

      For anybody that does not understand progressive income tax brackets, a top rate of 50% does not mean you pay 50% on all income. You pay nothing to a certain point, pay a lower percentage up to a certain level, and then it goes up on what you make beyond that level. On the 30,000th dollar you make, you might pay 25 cents tax. On the 200,000th dollar, you might pay 53 cents. On your first dollar, you pay nothing.

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      bcsven@lemmy.ca
      wrote on last edited by
      #80

      Thankfully BC doesnt do sales tax on food (even at a restaurant) and property tax is super cheap here. Ours is about $1500 on a 600k place. My tax rate is about 22-26% but with deductions it would be more like 20%, and spouse earns less and other deductions so 13% owing. But even at 20% there is no way another 30% is additional tax

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      • salty_chief@lemmy.worldS salty_chief@lemmy.world

        To be real about it. Who is going to say it was bad receiving extra money a month? I understand the health data portion. Question remains is it sustainable and how would it be paid for?

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        faintwhenfree@lemmus.org
        wrote on last edited by
        #81

        Choosing the right level of income is the key for UBI to work, it has to be enough to live and survive but not so much that a recipient can enjoy luxury. Most people like to contribute to society, being is social is how humans are so dominant as a species.

        Most people will contribute to the economy if they can, because it supports ambition, better lifestyle but it doesn’t put pressure to worry about where today’s food is going to be, people take more risks, be more entrepreneurial, explore more curiosity, explore new ideas, people spend time on acquiring more useful skills.

        A mentally healthy mind is not entirely lazy. Being lazy perpetually reflects a deeper problem that is psychological to some degree such as having no hope or not being able to Imagine a happy future, or feeling helpless. Mentally healthy people want to contribute to society.

        Economy as a whole will expand, which will pay in turn for UBI. First few years of UBI might be heavier on tax payers of the old system, but in long term UBI will lead to better economy. Question is not who is going to pay for it, question is can people agree to pay more out of their own pocket now for a better future for everyone? OR are we doomed as a species by exploiting our own kind?

        rivalarrival@lemmy.todayR 1 Reply Last reply
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        • D dancesongraves@lemmy.ca

          We’re not quite there yet. Even with offsets by eliminating virtually all other social programs, including socialized healthcare, and slashing the size of military expenditures to almost nothing, doing every single good idea there is to fund it and increasing taxation on the owner class, there simply isn’t enought GDP to support it without spending your way into inflation… not unless you’re a country with a very small population rich in natural resources.

          It’s plausible if we can bring the price of energy down to the point that it’s negligible and multiplies productivity almost for free.

          We need scalable commercial fusion power to make it work, basically.

          I agree with the goal,l. I don’t think people will contribute less without the threat of being unable to meet basic costs of living. I think a lot of people’s contributions to society aren’t adequately captured and recorded by our economic system.

          But I’m not naive enough to believe that it can meet all of a person’s cost of living with current tech.

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          lefantome@programming.dev
          wrote on last edited by
          #82

          I doubt this is correct. The argument against universal healthcare was similar and provably, historically wrong.

          As UBI is not a lot per person and only goes to very low income people, the burden on the entire country is not great. And it turns out that impoverished people are a burden on the country. Alleviating that burden offsets the costs.

          H gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.deG 2 Replies Last reply
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          • L lefantome@programming.dev

            I doubt this is correct. The argument against universal healthcare was similar and provably, historically wrong.

            As UBI is not a lot per person and only goes to very low income people, the burden on the entire country is not great. And it turns out that impoverished people are a burden on the country. Alleviating that burden offsets the costs.

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            healthetank@lemmy.ca
            wrote on last edited by
            #83

            Especially with that single-payer healthcare we have. The unit rates for things like Dr. hours or beds in hospitals are enormous. If we can cut down on the number of visits required because people have somewhere safe to live and aren’t getting injured/sick living on the street, we could save huge amounts of money. Add onto that the cost of policing and/or incarcerating them, plus the economic benefit of having downtown areas feel safer for people, thus encouraging more people to live/work/spend time in those areas.

            M 1 Reply Last reply
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            • S showroom7561@lemmy.ca

              $10,000,001+: Taxes increase by 10% per $10,000,000 earned to a cap of 80%

              You are too kind.

              Because wealth hoarders would still make HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS, even if you taxed 80%.

              The tax rate should be 100% past a certain amount of wealth. We should de-incentivize wealth hoarding, and encourage people to retire once they’ve made enough to sustain their family for a lifetime. If they choose to keep working, it should basically be volunteer work after a certain point, and wealth should be redistributed back to everyone else.

              If we put a hard cap on wealth, everyone would be in a position to retire young and not struggle through their entire life. This is what we should be striving for.

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              healthetank@lemmy.ca
              wrote on last edited by
              #84

              Problem is the uber wealthy aren’t actually PAID that much. They’re given stock options or other, non-liquid cash, which isn’t taxed as income. It also doesn’t get taxed until you withdraw it (see the capital gains “scare” that the media hyped up over the recent changes to tax code). Had to dig a bit to find it, but Quebec provides their people with >1mil income per year, which is about 7,000, or 0.08%. Extrapolated to Canada-wide (which I’d argue is not accurate and way too high) gives us 27,000. That’s not a lot of people to try and draw any major funds from. Especially at a ramping rate of return like proposed.

              Very rich (bezos, Westons, etc) then draw it out as needed, or use it as collateral against loans at lower interest rates than their return on investments, driving things like private equity, corporate landlords, etc. This then cycles, increasing their paper wealth while not actually having a lot of income to tax easily.

              We should de-incentivize wealth hoarding

              I agree. The problem is how to do that without penalizing the bottom end, overcomplicating tax laws further, and/or creating some other loophole for the rich to jump through. What counts into your wealth hording? Property? Investments? Are unrealized gains (ie stocks worth a ton but not yet sold to gain actual money) counted against them? What about property - if the market skyrockets, are people forced to sell their homes?

              What about things like the wealthy transferring their extra wealth to children or spouses? How does that play into it? Its messy once you get into the details of it, and those are the key points that would actually make a difference.

              S 1 Reply Last reply
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              • E englishgrinn@lemmy.ca

                This is an untrue statistic often trotted out by the Conservative Frasier Institute. Canadians think we’re taxed far more than we are, because public opinion has been manipulated to believe so. Average Canadian pays about one third of income to taxes - creeping up as you move up taxes brackets

                remembertheapollo_@lemmy.worldR This user is from outside of this forum
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                remembertheapollo_@lemmy.world
                wrote on last edited by
                #85

                I don’t wish to interrupt a Canadian discussion, but the US is similar - ~20% state and federal taxes, property tax, medical coverage, etc. are all going to be about 30% income, if not more, depending on location. So not unreasonable at face value without going too deep into the particulars of each.

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                • H healthetank@lemmy.ca

                  Problem is the uber wealthy aren’t actually PAID that much. They’re given stock options or other, non-liquid cash, which isn’t taxed as income. It also doesn’t get taxed until you withdraw it (see the capital gains “scare” that the media hyped up over the recent changes to tax code). Had to dig a bit to find it, but Quebec provides their people with >1mil income per year, which is about 7,000, or 0.08%. Extrapolated to Canada-wide (which I’d argue is not accurate and way too high) gives us 27,000. That’s not a lot of people to try and draw any major funds from. Especially at a ramping rate of return like proposed.

                  Very rich (bezos, Westons, etc) then draw it out as needed, or use it as collateral against loans at lower interest rates than their return on investments, driving things like private equity, corporate landlords, etc. This then cycles, increasing their paper wealth while not actually having a lot of income to tax easily.

                  We should de-incentivize wealth hoarding

                  I agree. The problem is how to do that without penalizing the bottom end, overcomplicating tax laws further, and/or creating some other loophole for the rich to jump through. What counts into your wealth hording? Property? Investments? Are unrealized gains (ie stocks worth a ton but not yet sold to gain actual money) counted against them? What about property - if the market skyrockets, are people forced to sell their homes?

                  What about things like the wealthy transferring their extra wealth to children or spouses? How does that play into it? Its messy once you get into the details of it, and those are the key points that would actually make a difference.

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                  showroom7561@lemmy.ca
                  wrote on last edited by
                  #86

                  We shouldn’t cap income, but total wealth. That would include stocks, assets, etc.

                  People should be free to make money, and if making was balanced, then taxes would apply to everyone fairly.

                  To reiterate, nobody should be worth a trillion, or even a billion.

                  What about property - if the market skyrockets, are people forced to sell their homes?

                  The cap wouldn’t be so low that this would become an issue. Unless you’ve hoarded multiple homes worth tens of millions each… a cap would discourage that type of hoarding, too.

                  What about things like the wealthy transferring their extra wealth to children or spouses? How does that play into it?

                  Family wealth would be capped, just as we are often taxed or given social assistance for total family income/assets.

                  If wealth was capped, then even if a family spread around the wealth, it wouldn’t be hoarding to the tune of hundreds of billions.

                  Really, we could have solutions to every scenario. But the fact is, our current system isn’t working at all. It’s perhaps the worst system you could dream up, unless you were among the top wealth hoarders in the world.

                  But a fair and balanced system would still have “rich” people, they just won’t be rich enough to influence elections, control social media, or monopolize any industrial sector.

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                  • H healthetank@lemmy.ca

                    Assuming this was supposed to reply to my response (you’re just responding directly to the main post FYI).

                    Canadians actually pay about HALF of their gross income in taxes

                    I haven’t ever heard a number this big. Where did you get this from, and how does it compare to other countries?

                    I don’t disagree - we’re taxed more than the US, but that comes with things like single-payer healthcare and higher regulatory enforcement. GST, for example, isn’t something collected in the US meaning they only have the effective PST component of our sales tax, which varies widely by municipality to municipality, but is quite a bit less.

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                    eranziel@lemmy.world
                    wrote on last edited by
                    #87

                    Single-payer meducal systems are objectively less expensive than the US’s ludicrous system. Americans pay the highest per-capita for medical care in the developed world by a huge margin. Technically it’s not taxes, but that’s because it’s directly feeding corporate profits. It’s still effectively mandatory cost of living.

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                    • L lefantome@programming.dev

                      Many middle class Canadian pay 25% or more just in income tax. Then you have to add sales taxes, property taxes, and the rest.

                      I would say he is about right.

                      The top income tax bracket is over 50%. If you are very high income, you can pay well over 30% just in income tax (overall).

                      For anybody that does not understand progressive income tax brackets, a top rate of 50% does not mean you pay 50% on all income. You pay nothing to a certain point, pay a lower percentage up to a certain level, and then it goes up on what you make beyond that level. On the 30,000th dollar you make, you might pay 25 cents tax. On the 200,000th dollar, you might pay 53 cents. On your first dollar, you pay nothing.

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                      eranziel@lemmy.world
                      wrote on last edited by
                      #88

                      25% might be what comes off your pay cheque, sure. That’s not actually how much income tax most people end up paying. How big of a refund did you get this year?

                      1 Reply Last reply
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                      • L luvs2spuj@lemmy.world

                        I imagine it would improve wages as employers would need to properly incentivise people to return to those jobs. Probably why UBI hasn’t made it past a trial yet.

                        𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚒𝚛𝚖𝚊𝚗 𝙼𝚎𝚘𝚠C This user is from outside of this forum
                        𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚒𝚛𝚖𝚊𝚗 𝙼𝚎𝚘𝚠C This user is from outside of this forum
                        𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚒𝚛𝚖𝚊𝚗 𝙼𝚎𝚘𝚠
                        wrote on last edited by
                        #89

                        Yes, but that’s the textbook definition of inflation (being forced to raise wages because the salary becomes less valuable). I’m not sure if that’s really the goal here.

                        I can understand the case for UBI, but so far most trials have been quite small in scope… that means few national effects have been properly observed.

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                        • C CanadaRocks

                          Who said anything about ‘fuck you I got mine?’

                          First of all Canada already has a TON of social supports for anyone who is in need. We have Employment Insurance if you lose your job. We have Old Age Security and Canada Pension Plan for seniors. We have Child Tax Credits for parents and especially single parents. We have the GST credit to give back taxes to low income earners. We have the Canada Workers Benefit. We have the Canada Disability Benefit. We have the Assured Income for Severely Handicapped. We have disability pensions. We have Universal Pharmacare for prescription drugs. We have housing benefits/social housing programs. We have the Canadian Dental Benefit. We have student aid. There are free food banks in every city. And there are emergency funds available for things like rent/damage deposits on an emergency basis from every province through various community agencies, charities, and non-profit organizations.

                          So WHY do we need UBI on top of all that? If you need help in Canada, you CAN find it. Its already here.

                          Source: I founded a charity for street kids in one of our major cities thats been operating for 33 years. There is a TON of support out there. The fact is that a LOT of the people on the street know how to use and abuse the system and they dont WANT to get out of it because its what they grew up in and what they are accustomed to. I speak from years of experience.

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                          sobchak@programming.dev
                          wrote on last edited by
                          #90

                          Because, as the research found, it improves health, housing stability, and social relationships? There shouldn’t be any need for charity, IMO. The patchwork of different social programs have tons of cracks for people to fall through if they don’t meet all the specific requirements. I’m sure if offered guaranteed and safe housing, no strings attached, most of the people on the streets would take it, and their lives and society would be better for it.

                          1 Reply Last reply
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                          • C CanadaRocks

                            You’re looking at one tax. If you look at ALL Canadian taxes, income tax, provincial taxes, sales tax, import taxes, fuel taxes, property taxes, health services taxes, business taxes Canadians actually pay about HALF of their gross income in taxes. We are f’n taxed to death in Canada.

                            Dharma Curious (he/him)D This user is from outside of this forum
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                            Dharma Curious (he/him)
                            wrote on last edited by
                            #91

                            Meanwhile, in south Carolina, I pay bring home about 60% of my income, I can’t afford to eat well, I get absolutely zero assistance for food, medical insurance, or God Forbid basic income, and I am genuinely contemplating attempting to live in my vehicle in an abandoned parking lot near my work to save on gas money.

                            gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.deG 1 Reply Last reply
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                            • B brickhead92@lemmy.world

                              Until it is peer reviewed and points out the glaring errors, which will promptly be ignored.

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                              fjdybank@lemmy.ca
                              wrote on last edited by
                              #92

                              Why don’t you stop and smell the roses?

                              Jumping to such a conclusion, then blaming the hypothetical reaction, displays ignorance or malice.

                              kairubyte@lemmy.dbzer0.comK 1 Reply Last reply
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                              • Dharma Curious (he/him)D Dharma Curious (he/him)

                                Meanwhile, in south Carolina, I pay bring home about 60% of my income, I can’t afford to eat well, I get absolutely zero assistance for food, medical insurance, or God Forbid basic income, and I am genuinely contemplating attempting to live in my vehicle in an abandoned parking lot near my work to save on gas money.

                                gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.deG This user is from outside of this forum
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                                gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de
                                wrote on last edited by
                                #93

                                UBI would also be good for the economy, as it stimulates consumerism. To economists, CEOs and politicians, you have to talk about the positive effects on the economy.

                                E 1 Reply Last reply
                                9
                                • C CanadaRocks

                                  Who said anything about ‘fuck you I got mine?’

                                  First of all Canada already has a TON of social supports for anyone who is in need. We have Employment Insurance if you lose your job. We have Old Age Security and Canada Pension Plan for seniors. We have Child Tax Credits for parents and especially single parents. We have the GST credit to give back taxes to low income earners. We have the Canada Workers Benefit. We have the Canada Disability Benefit. We have the Assured Income for Severely Handicapped. We have disability pensions. We have Universal Pharmacare for prescription drugs. We have housing benefits/social housing programs. We have the Canadian Dental Benefit. We have student aid. There are free food banks in every city. And there are emergency funds available for things like rent/damage deposits on an emergency basis from every province through various community agencies, charities, and non-profit organizations.

                                  So WHY do we need UBI on top of all that? If you need help in Canada, you CAN find it. Its already here.

                                  Source: I founded a charity for street kids in one of our major cities thats been operating for 33 years. There is a TON of support out there. The fact is that a LOT of the people on the street know how to use and abuse the system and they dont WANT to get out of it because its what they grew up in and what they are accustomed to. I speak from years of experience.

                                  gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.deG This user is from outside of this forum
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                                  gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de
                                  wrote on last edited by
                                  #94

                                  First of all, UBI would be simpler as it’s given to everyone, and replaces a lot of other subsidies. That makes bureaucracy simpler, which means less personnel costs, and less error-prone.

                                  Secondly, the subsidies until now have been add-ons to an otherwise healthy labor market. That’s no longer the case: the labor market is getting darker year by year, and it’s only a matter of time till subsidies will not be an add-on anymore, but the main source of income.

                                  Thirdly, giving UBI is fairer than, say, unemployment money. If you give out money to unemployed people, you favor people not working, and that’s not what you want. By giving UBI to everyone, people who receive subsidies still have an incentive to work as much as they can.

                                  1 Reply Last reply
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                                  • mintyfresh@lemmy.worldM mintyfresh@lemmy.world

                                    Idk, I feel like landlords would just jack prices by whatever the ubi payments are. Ubi is a good idea for sure, but it’s only a piece.

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                                    gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de
                                    wrote on last edited by
                                    #95

                                    Explain to me why landlords didn’t just jack rent payments in 1960s. Why did people back then have money left at the end of the month?

                                    1 Reply Last reply
                                    11
                                    • G garbagebagel@lemmy.world

                                      Controlled rent would also be fantastic and has worked in economically diffuclt times like COVID. I don’t see why it wouldn’t work again during the recession we are spiralling towards.

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                                      gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de
                                      wrote on last edited by gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de
                                      #96

                                      City-owned housing works great here in Vienna. The City owns like somthing like 20% of all apartments and rents them out at basically non-profit rates. It works fantastically! It does not only offer lower rents, but it makes people realize that landlords often charge unnecessarily high prices and makes people demand better from landlords, so these lower their prices as well to compete with the city apartments.

                                      Edit: for reference, i’m paying 500€/month (roughly $600/month) on rent and it’s already a private-owned apartment. In the city apartments, the rent is even lower still.

                                      1 Reply Last reply
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                                      • D dancesongraves@lemmy.ca

                                        We’re not quite there yet. Even with offsets by eliminating virtually all other social programs, including socialized healthcare, and slashing the size of military expenditures to almost nothing, doing every single good idea there is to fund it and increasing taxation on the owner class, there simply isn’t enought GDP to support it without spending your way into inflation… not unless you’re a country with a very small population rich in natural resources.

                                        It’s plausible if we can bring the price of energy down to the point that it’s negligible and multiplies productivity almost for free.

                                        We need scalable commercial fusion power to make it work, basically.

                                        I agree with the goal,l. I don’t think people will contribute less without the threat of being unable to meet basic costs of living. I think a lot of people’s contributions to society aren’t adequately captured and recorded by our economic system.

                                        But I’m not naive enough to believe that it can meet all of a person’s cost of living with current tech.

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                                        gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de
                                        wrote on last edited by
                                        #97

                                        doing every single good idea there is to fund it and increasing taxation on the owner class, there simply isn’t enought GDP to support it without spending your way into inflation…

                                        I did the actual calculation a while ago for the US and found the following:

                                        If a wealth tax were created to tax all wealth above $10 million with an annual 3% tax rate, it would generate enough money to give everyone in the US a $300/month handout.

                                        1 Reply Last reply
                                        4
                                        • L lefantome@programming.dev

                                          I doubt this is correct. The argument against universal healthcare was similar and provably, historically wrong.

                                          As UBI is not a lot per person and only goes to very low income people, the burden on the entire country is not great. And it turns out that impoverished people are a burden on the country. Alleviating that burden offsets the costs.

                                          gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.deG This user is from outside of this forum
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                                          gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de
                                          wrote on last edited by
                                          #98

                                          As UBI is not a lot per person and only goes to very low income people

                                          It goes to everyone. But as it also goes to wealthy people, you can tax them more in that way, and so basically there’s no real extra expense there.

                                          1 Reply Last reply
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