Assignment 16- Speech Final- Sneha Amrit

Should We Implement a UBI?

With the 2020 presidential election coming up, there have been many people running for the democractic nomination. One of them is Andrew Yang, you may be part of the #yanggang, know him as the guy who gets his name mispronounced on MSNBC, the guy who gets his mic cut off in debates, or as the guy who wants to give every adult a Universal Basic Income or what he calls the Freedom Dividend which would be 1,000 dollars per adult per month in the United States in order to stimulate the economy. Now would this help the economy, or actually hurt it?

The Center for Budget Policies reports that if each adult was given 12,000 dollars a year it  would cost more than 3 trillion dollars a year — and 30 trillion dollars to 40 trillion dollars over ten years. This single-year figure equals more than three-fourths of the entire yearly federal budget.  It’s also equal to close to 100 percent of all tax revenue the federal government collects, so there is no plausible way that UBI could be funded alongside other current welfare Right now most of our social programs are conditional. With the exception of the aged and the disabled, assistance is tied to work or to the consumption of necessities such as food, housing, or medical care (Sawhill 2016) A recent report states that “If you take the dollars targeted on people in the bottom fifth or two-fifths of the population and convert them to universal payments to people all the way up the income scale, you’re redistributing income upward.  That would increase poverty and inequality rather than reduce them.” A new study from Compass shows that if UBI was implemented child poverty would increase by 10%, poverty among pensioners by 4%, and poverty among the working population by 3%. 

Due to the cost of UBI it would have to be a replacement for all current government welfare programs. It would also have to replace medicare and medicaid something individuals require for survival. This would lead to individuals having to go to private insurance providers and Nick Downson a health reporter explains that “Privatized healthcare may give us a choice between different companies, but we lose the option of going to a local hospital where the staff can put patients above profits. The extension of the market’s reach into all aspects of our lives has a pernicious effect, subordinating wider values to the pursuit of profit, and replacing genuine options with the veneer of individual brand choice.” These private corporations co pay rates are much higher than those of government healthcare rates (Medicare beneficiaries are also less likely than those with private insurance to go without needed care owing to costs (18% vs. 22%) commonwealth fund) This would be devastating for the most impoverished and many would have to go without insurance. If a family of four only receives UBI and no other income would only have 24,000 dollars and if one of their children were to break their arm then they would have to pay anywhere from 3,000 to 10,000 dollars. 

To pay for a basic income that would be a living income or sustainable income, the Foundation for Economic Education states that it would require taxation of wage earners 50% more for the highest and second highest tax brackets. Offsetting high cost of living cities like New York, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C. would necessitate a tax rate unsustainable for most Americans higher than they ever have been in history. This leads to either a subsidy for poor Americans, or force many low-income individuals to relocate out of major cities. Needless to say, this exodus hampers innovation. basic universal income only hedges against future unemployment rather than creating opportunities in the present to anticipate economic changes. It is immoral to excessively tax people when there is no benefit to any group. Creating a safety net that promises no ability to put people to work is giving them $1,000, not teaching them to build boats or sail, and asking them to get off an island. There is still time to right the ship. It is unfair to tax individuals more than they have UBI does not fix the roots of problems but rather exacerbates them hurting everyone.

Instead of just giving everyone 1,000 dollars, we need to focus on helping people who need it. UBI would take away from welfare from the impoverished and give unnecessary money to the wealthy. Instead of promoting UBI, we need to focus on expanding welfare programs to help people get themselves out of poverty and have economic freedom.