I wrote:
> You do not have to eliminate it. What you do is subtract Social Security > payments from the "free cash" universal payment. . . . > Social Security is not "means tested." You get it whether you are rich or poor. There will still be some means-tested benefits when the system begins, such as food stamps (SNAP) and disabled veteran payments. These payments would also be subtracted from the universal payment. For example, the average food stamp benefit is $133 per month per person, or $1,596 per year. So, an adult receiving that would get a universal benefit of $8,404 instead of $10,000. Alternatively, the adult would be offered the option of leaving the food stamp program completely. Children in the food stamp program would not be affected. http://kff.org/other/state-indicator/avg-monthly-food-stamp-benefits/ A severely disabled veteran now getting $100,000 in benefits would continue to get them, with zero universal benefit. >From Uncle Sam's point of view, most of present-day means-tested payments would be subtracted from cost of supplying the universal benefit, just as most Social Security benefits are subtracted. In other words, it would cost only a little more to supply food stamps than it does today. The additional amount being what the government now supplies to children, only, not to adults or retired people. Overall foodstamp outlays would probably decline, because most food stamps are paid to working adults, such as people working at Walmart. This should be considered a subsidy from the government to the wealthy stockholders who own Walmart, and to Wall Street. When poor people have $10,000 in guaranteed income, they will be less desperate and less likely to work for starvation wages. This will force Walmart to increase its wages, which will reduce the number of people on food stamps. This will incentivize Walmart to speed up its efforts to mechanize and replace its workers with robots. That's the idea! After they finish doing that, decades from now, the universal payment will have increased enough so that no one needs to work. Walmart will still be paying taxes while most individuals will not, because Walmart would be the only place still making money. Some people will still continue to work even after the system is fully in place and the universal benefit is something like $100,000 a year (in today's dollars). Some people will work for free, or nearly for free, at jobs they love. Others will make tremendous sums of money. They will include people such as best-selling authors, pop-singers, university presidents, corporate CEOs, professional football players, people who invent new technology, doctors, and so on. In 50 years I do not think there will be as many doctors or nurses as we now have, but I expect there will be some. In a thousand years I predict there will no doctors. It will be illegal and unthinkable for anything but a robot to perform surgery or diagnose an illness. - Jed
