Tax the rich > fund the working class and social services > economic boom. We Know.

It’s a crime to not have universal basic income at this point. People aren’t only unable to afford basic living expenses, but they’re losing jobs to automation and AI already. What are these people supposed to do? Go beg on the streets?

TL;DR - The document discusses the results of a universal basic income (UBI) trial in Canada, which was conducted in Southern Ontario between 2017 and 2019. The trial, which was cancelled prematurely, showed that participants experienced improvements in mental health, housing stability, and social relationships, as well as reduced visits to hospitals and doctors. The UBI payments, which were designed to reduce poverty and encourage work, were found to have a positive impact on participants’ physical and mental well-being, with many reporting decreased use of alcohol and tobacco. The trial also dispelled concerns that UBI would lead to unemployment, with only 17% of participants leaving their jobs and nearly half of those who stopped working returning to school or university to up-skill. The report suggests that UBI could be a useful public health strategy and that the safety net provided by the UBI project helped participants find better jobs with higher wages and improved working conditions. [AI Summary]

These studies are annoying. “Study finds if you give people money they do better in life” Wow. Such rocket science.
But for all the radical socialists trying push UBI, you will note that NONE of them want to pay for it with their tax increases (do they even pay taxes?). Which is the entire problem. There may be some savings in the system but the COST will be borne up front by the taxpaayer. And since WHEN in the history of mankind, if a gov has saved some money in other areas, have they LOWERED taxes due to the savings? Never.

Therefore UBI is sever going to happen. Because the only people who support it are students and academics and think tanks. The rest of us live in reality and are sick of our very high tax burden in Canada. So enough with the studies, kill this idea once and for all.

But! Maybe we could not tax the rich and the money would trickle down, have you thought of that?

This calls for another study!

I push UBI and I completely want to pay for it with everyones taxes including mine same as universal healthcare. I mean im in the US. It also should replace all cash assistance. Unemployment, disability, social security, etc ; and it should provide enough to get by on. Modest rent, utilities, food. Most of the bureaucracy could be removed since there is no means test. It would basically be social security for all but for the us you would need universal healthcare as many retired folks would be getting less. Most folks should break even tax wise unless not making enough to get by or doing pretty well. I usually get the response at this point about whats the point for the regular person if they pay as much as they get. The point is if you lose your job you retain and income stream till you get a new one without having to fill out paperwork and wait and maybe get denied, same with disability, and same when you retired. The moment your working again your paying into the system. In many cases throughout ones life one will pay more in than they get out but almost everyone does that with insurance and the reason you do it is because its there when you need it (although this one a bit more so as you don’t have to file a claim as you did that when you turned 18). For young folks it helps you with college, for career times it acts like unemployment that takes no effort so you can get those resumes out asap, for retirement it acts like retirement.

UBI isn’t the best solution out there, it is a highly polarized idea, and funding for a program on scale would cost trillions Billions, requiring trillions in revenue to be a viable option.

I think a better idea is a reform of taxation.

First $50,000 of income is not taxed.

$50,001-$100,000: Taxed at 15% $100,001-$500,000: Taxed at 25% $500,001-$1,000,000: Taxed at 40% $1,000,000-$10,000,000: Taxed at 50%

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

This would essentially create the conditions of UBI, help to increase funding for support for those who cannot work or are unable to work full time, and the rich finally get to pay their share.

These are also really rough numbers just as an example for the idea.

Edit:

For those who do not believe that UBI is unsustainable on scale:

The idea of UBI: “Universal Basic Income (UBI) is a social welfare concept that proposes providing all citizens or residents of a particular country or region with a regular, unconditional sum of money, regardless of their income, employment status, or wealth”

There are 32,708,656 Canadians as of 2024 aged 20 or older according to population estimates.

Population estimates on July 1, by age and gender

Estimated number of persons on July 1, by 5-year age groups and gender, and median age, for Canada, provinces and territories.

(www150.statcan.gc.ca)

The 2023-2024 total revenues for Canada was $459.5 billion.

Annual Financial Report of the Government of Canada Fiscal Year 2023-2024 - Canada.ca

Annual Financial Report of the Government of Canada Fiscal Year 2023-2024

(www.canada.ca)

The article cites the experiment where the participants received either $16,989 CAD/year as a single person or $24,027 CAD/year. UBI is supposed to be the same payment regardless of any status, so I am going to use the single person amount for scale.

32,708,656 * $16,989 = $555,687,356,784

$555,687,356,784 - $459,500,000,000 = $96,187,356,784

Canada would need to make almost $100 billion more in revenue every year just to cover UBI, and that does not include anything else Federal revenue is used for.

UBI is not sustainable on scale, and there are better options.

I got a good idea. How about mega corps actually start paying taxes?

I got a good idea. How about mega corps actually start paying taxes?

Please read my comment before responding to me in the future. My point is increased taxation on large earnings up to an incredibly high cap is a better solution than UBI.

Or you know the better option of raising the tax rate, to pay for ubi

We will fund it using debt is the problem. Then the poor will suffer greater and greater as they have since the 70s while those that hold assets get richer.

Its pretty obvious that the housing bubble exists due to debt and currency debasement, heck the Bank of Canada is still buying half of all mortgage bonds. This is the main things that’s making the poor worse off, as homeowners are becoming cantillionaires.

Napkin math will demonstrate to you why UBI is not sustainable on scale, even with an increase in taxes.

Taxing corps is the same as taxing people, there’s no difference other than whos books it ends up on. Companies are all owned by people (eventually)

If you want to tax wealthy people who hold the stocks, tax them directly.

Let the companies generate value free from taxes on their operation. Of course we should charge them taxes for things like land and resource use, and force them to meet human, environmental, and safety standards.

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?

I’d be happy to receive money every months that I payback in full on my tax deductions. If I suddenly stop working, the check just keep coming in. It becomes a safety net available to all, that doesn’t mean you are actually giving it to all, all the time. You can get rid of other program that become redundant. Welfare, employment insurance, hell student loans too could be splified this way.

Just renaming Welfare to UBI. Again where is the money coming from should be answered by politicians.

Welfare only kicks in once I’ve spent all my savings and sold my house. Money comes from taxes. Welfare takes lots of time to kick in and is sublet to a ton of conditions. UBI is there all the time. Way cheaper to administrate.

I like this better. It means fully worker owned corporations get to keep more of their earnings because it’s more spread out. Discourages wealth concentration.

And since WHEN in the history of mankind, if a gov has saved some money in other areas, have they LOWERED taxes due to the savings? Never.

Governments lower taxes all of the freaking time. This last federal election it was one of the largest points that all three major parties were proposing.

Because the only people who support it are students and academics and think tanks. The rest of us live in reality and are sick of our very high tax burden in Canada. So enough with the studies, kill this idea once and for all.

False, I live here and work here and support exploring the idea to see what and how it would work. You can’t know how expensive it is based solely on theories, so we NEED to run these studies to show it either is or isn’t more expensive. Especially given our single-payer healthcare, reductions in healthcare spending due to better life circumstances/proper nutrition can very quickly and easily make up significant costs spent elsewhere.

Canada’s tax burden is not actually that high. Curious what you’re comparing to. Taking Canada’s average income of $55,000, they pay effective rates of 13-20%, based on your province.

Taking a few US cities as comparison,, Georgia is at ~20%, while Michigan sits at 19% because they have a city income tax rate. California falls around the 19% mark as well. BUT many of those places have cities which also have rates ranging from 0.5 to 2.5%.