Yeah, but its hard/impossible to figure out how large the higher order effects of getting the government out of direct interference in the economy would be. Stuff would be so much cheaper.

Also, if 20k is unaffordable, why not 10k to start.

Yes but if you do even napkin math it gets huge pretty quickly. 
The poverty line for a family of two is 20,000.  If the United States government supplied all of the citizens above 18, about 258 million people, it would cost $5.16 trillion dollars a year. The entire government budget was $6.13 trillion in 2023.

doubleplusgood23

Isn't the point of it to replace all other welfare and entitlement systems? Everyone gets UBI and then the free market handles the rest, thus removing huge amounts of the state apparatus and its interference.

02bcd3eeb0

news

AI 'godfather' says universal basic income will be needed

ch0k1

Considering how much we spend on “entitlements”/“welfare” as it is I am interested in changing the system into something more sustainable. 

It seems difficult to make the basic math work on UBI though. I’ve heard “negative income tax” is what people who understand economics call it. 