Citizen's dividend experiment run by Rumsfeld and Cheney

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AnotherSwede
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Re: Citizen's dividend experiment run by Rumsfeld and Cheney

Post by AnotherSwede » Sat Apr 15, 2017 9:39 am

Pointedstick wrote:The big difference between the USA and Europe (and other places) is that a lot of our income redistribution takes money away from the poor and gives it to the middle class, upper middle class, and wealthy.

This seems bizarre, but it's culturally in tune with the very American attitude that people get what they deserve. Poor people must be poor because they're lazy and useless, see? So it's considered moral for government to pull money out of their pockets and give it to people who are seen as working harder and contributing more to society.7

...

A major benefit of UBI is that it blows up this insanity, (theoretically) distributing the money fairly and evenly, with no political games, lobbying opportunities to beggar they neighbor, and incentives to make bad decisions.
It was not that kind of redistribution I meant ;)

I am all for UBI:
1. Every unemployed had incentive to find some work, no matter what extent or pay
2. The army of administrators working within the welfare system could be free to do something useful. Or at least fun.

Swedish pre-tax income (chose 20-65):
http://pejl.svt.se/visualisering/inkomster/var-ar-du/
98th percentile 39ksek post tax
46th percentile 17.2ksek (this is minimum wage for uneducated restaurant workers with 6 years experience ... yes! McDonalds employees)

So just about x2 difference between fast food workers and an engineer earning way above his peers.
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Re: Citizen's dividend experiment run by Rumsfeld and Cheney

Post by Libertarian666 » Sat Apr 15, 2017 1:39 pm

I'm all in favor of everyone who favors this plan moving to Sweden. In fact I'd even contribute to tickets for them. One-way, of course.
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Re: Citizen's dividend experiment run by Rumsfeld and Cheney

Post by Maddy » Sat Apr 15, 2017 2:19 pm

Pointedstick wrote: The big difference between the USA and Europe (and other places) is that a lot of our income redistribution takes money away from the poor and gives it to the middle class, upper middle class, and wealthy.
Could you provide some examples of how income is taken from the poor and given to the middle and upper classes? This is not at all self-evident to me.
This seems bizarre, but it's culturally in tune with the very American attitude that people get what they deserve. Poor people must be poor because they're lazy and useless, see? So it's considered moral for government to pull money out of their pockets and give it to people who are seen as working harder and contributing more to society.
Okay, I'll say it. In many instances people are poor because they are lazy and useless. Specifically, they have dug themselves into a hole because of their own consistently poor choices. You see it most clearly in the "generationally" poor. Their lives are a succession of screw-ups that can be directly traced to the reckless, self-defeating choices that they make every day.

Even considering that some people are dealt a lousy hand through no fault of their own, this society still offers people who make consistently responsible choices the opportunity to improve their lot in life and to move freely between social classes. I can't think of too many obstacles that prevent a determined and hard-working person from achieving pretty much whatever status they want in life. That said, it IS possible to screw up your life so badly that you no longer have a whole lot of choices. Having children before you're not ready is right up there at the top of the list.
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Re: Citizen's dividend experiment run by Rumsfeld and Cheney

Post by Pointedstick » Sat Apr 15, 2017 2:54 pm

Maddy wrote:
Pointedstick wrote: The big difference between the USA and Europe (and other places) is that a lot of our income redistribution takes money away from the poor and gives it to the middle class, upper middle class, and wealthy.
Could you provide some examples of how income is taken from the poor and given to the middle and upper classes? This is not at all self-evident to me.
Social Security and Medicare are the big ones. These programs benefit a group of people that control the most wealth of any age group in the USA:

Image
https://www.fool.com/investing/general/ ... where.aspx

Those programs are funded by regressive flat taxes that impact low-income wage earners hardest. And they cannot be reduced in any way. In effect, they take income from many who can ill afford the loss, and give it to people who on average control more than $150k. When you account for the fact that poor people have a lower lifespan, many will see little or none of that money, having died before age 65.

Additional poor-to-rich tax mechanisms are the additional income taxes required to offset the revenue lost from long-term capital gains taxes, pension contribution and income exclusions, the capital gains tax basis step-up after death, and deductions for home mortgage interest, state & local taxes and charitable contributions:

Image
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_St ... ral_budget

These tax reductions look like they add up to $440 billion per year that must be offset by higher income taxes on everybody. Since income taxes are progressive, a lot of this is robbing peter to pay peter, but the wealthiest get less of their income from actual income compared to capital gains, so it winds up being an effective wealth transfer from the middle (highest income tax paying group to the top.

As you can see, the poor get back some of the money through the EITC and child tax credit--as well as the poor-targeting welfare programs like Medicaid, SNAP, LIHEAP, and Section 8 housing.


Maddy wrote:
Pointedstick wrote:This seems bizarre, but it's culturally in tune with the very American attitude that people get what they deserve. Poor people must be poor because they're lazy and useless, see? So it's considered moral for government to pull money out of their pockets and give it to people who are seen as working harder and contributing more to society.
Okay, I'll say it. In many instances people are poor because they are lazy and useless. Specifically, they have dug themselves into a hole because of their own consistently poor choices. You see it most clearly in the "generationally" poor. Their lives are a succession of screw-ups that can be directly traced to the reckless, self-defeating choices that they make every day.
I largely agree. But look deeper: most people aren't like you and me and all of us here; most people make choices determined by the culture around them, not their own capacities for independent thought. You see this as evidently with a poor person whose diet consists mostly of Cheetos and Coke as you do with a middle-class person who buys a new truck for $50,000 or a large house for zero down. Most people follow cultural and institutional signals nearly all the time. You're absolutely right that there are opportunities to rise above, and some take advantage of them. But most people won't. If they grow up in a cultural and legal environment that encourages poverty, they won't rise above it, any more than most of the people who grow up in a cultural and legal environment encouraging middle-class values will make the jump to true wealth in their own lifetimes.
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Re: Citizen's dividend experiment run by Rumsfeld and Cheney

Post by Maddy » Sat Apr 15, 2017 5:37 pm

Pointedstick wrote:
Maddy wrote:
Pointedstick wrote: The big difference between the USA and Europe (and other places) is that a lot of our income redistribution takes money away from the poor and gives it to the middle class, upper middle class, and wealthy.
Could you provide some examples of how income is taken from the poor and given to the middle and upper classes? This is not at all self-evident to me.
Social Security and Medicare are the big ones. These programs benefit a group of people that control the most wealth of any age group in the USA. . .

Those programs are funded by regressive flat taxes that impact low-income wage earners hardest. And they cannot be reduced in any way. In effect, they take income from many who can ill afford the loss, and give it to people who on average control more than $150k. When you account for the fact that poor people have a lower lifespan, many will see little or none of that money, having died before age 65.
I'm not sure I follow your thinking. FICA taxes, which fund Social Security and Medicare, are levied at a rate of 15.3 percent of earned income regardless of who you are. But when it comes time to draw on these programs, low-wage earners get a much greater benefit than high-income earners relative to what they've put in. That's because there's a "floor" built into the benefit calculation.

In addition, I suspect (though I don't have any data at hand to support it) that low-income folks account for a disproportionate draw on the Social Security disability rolls. We know this is true with SSI, which by definition provides benefits in excess of what's been paid in.
Additional poor-to-rich tax mechanisms are the additional income taxes required to offset the revenue lost from long-term capital gains taxes, pension contribution and income exclusions, the capital gains tax basis step-up after death, and deductions for home mortgage interest, state & local taxes and charitable contributions. . .
Im not sure I understand the argument. Middle- and high-income earners pay income taxes at considerably higher rates than the poor, so the fact that the tax law cuts them some breaks, reducing what would otherwise be a crushing tax burden, doesn't sound redistributive to me--unless you're coming from a radical egalitarian perspective and assuming that any financial advantage must necessarily have been won at the unfair expense of somebody else. We'd have to look at the effective rates paid by each group after the various deductions and credits are accounted for. I think you'd have a hard time showing that even after deductions your average middle- or high-income earner pays anywhere near the 0 to 10 percent rate enjoyed by most low-income folks.

I've been in some of the higher tax brackets and some of the lowest ones, but I've never felt so raked over the coals as when I was on the high-earning (and highly taxed) end of things.
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Re: Citizen's dividend experiment run by Rumsfeld and Cheney

Post by Libertarian666 » Sat Apr 15, 2017 5:51 pm

It may very well be true that most people won't make the effort to better themselves. What I don't see is how that imposes any obligation on those who do make that effort.
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Re: Citizen's dividend experiment run by Rumsfeld and Cheney

Post by Maddy » Sat Apr 15, 2017 6:11 pm

Clearly you don't understand the doctrine of oppression.

Plus, you didn't build it, remember?
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Re: Citizen's dividend experiment run by Rumsfeld and Cheney

Post by Maddy » Sat Apr 15, 2017 6:35 pm

On the subject of the so-called Citizen's Dividend, I'm struggling with the question why this proposed helicopter drop would not result in an immediate and commensurate increase in the price of the goods and services purchased by low- and middle-class citizens. Isn't this the predictable outcome?

I'm also wondering how an across-the-board increase in income could ever be meaningful in a practical, experiential sense. In this country, real poverty of the kind suffered by people in third-world countries is virtually nonexistent. We judge our "poorness" or "wealth" in terms of what we have come to expect--in terms of what we think we should have. And our expectations are based, in turn, upon what everybody around us has. The consequence is that I will feel poor and be recognized as poor--and therefore will be poor--so long as I'm surrounded by people who are have more than I do.

So let's say that we hand out a generous Citizen's Dividend to everyone. Alas, I get my long-awaited opportunity to buy that Ford Explorer that the Joneses have parked in the garage. I'm ecstatic--until the Joneses pull into the driveway with a new Mazarati. See what I'm saying?
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Re: Citizen's dividend experiment run by Rumsfeld and Cheney

Post by Pointedstick » Sat Apr 15, 2017 8:19 pm

You make a lot of good points, Maddy.

We can pick the details to death until the cows come home, but the way I see it, our society is at a crossroads for the soon-to-be-former working class and we have three options:
  1. Transform the working class into an intellectual class such that they can all get high-quality jobs in the service sector
  2. Bring back the '50s labor market: expand manual labor blue-collar work opportunities and raise wages
  3. Let the current generation of the working class become another government-dependent underclass for the next 30 years, and hope their children choose #1
#1 is what the left has been trying to do for 30 years with their urgings to go to college and support for job retraining programs. None of it has worked. More people went to college (still not a majority, though--a high of something like 40% in the millennial generation) but all it succeeded in doing was depressing wages in the fields, creating a permanent class of involuntarily underemployed educated people whose degrees don't match the labor market, and pumping up a historic student loan bubble--making slaves out of tens of millions.

#2 is what Trump campaigned on, but it's equally impossible. Most of those jobs are gone for good, victims of globalization, mechanization, the digital revolution, an immigrant labor base that isn't going anywhere, and simply different market dynamics. It also awkwardly requires bringing back the labor movement, which nobody seems interested in. And of course, there isn't the surplus purchasing power to afford the higher prices resulting from returning to this model.

#3 is the status quo as more and more people become dependent on government programs. The helicopter drop already happened: it's called Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and public employee pensions. There are retiree and working class towns without many jobs that get a huge chunk of their purchasing power from these transfer payment programs. I live in one such town. Lots of people have decent middle-ish-class lives, and there's plenty of retail and basic services because their federal government transfer payments provide purchasing power, but there aren't many jobs, because labor force participation is low--currently at a hair over 44% (USA average is 63%). The biggest high-wage industry is healthcare for all the old people. And of course most of the money there comes directly from the government.

CD/UBI is little more than an alternative approach to the same thing, hopefully with more dignity, less bureaucracy, and fewer perverse incentives, poverty traps, and market distortions. It's an unhappy improvement on an unhappy option because everybody knows that #1 and #2 won't happen. I'd love to be wrong, but I'm not optimistic.
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Re: Citizen's dividend experiment run by Rumsfeld and Cheney

Post by AnotherSwede » Sat Apr 15, 2017 10:28 pm

Maddy wrote:On the subject of the so-called Citizen's Dividend, I'm struggling with the question why this proposed helicopter drop would not result in an immediate and commensurate increase in the price of the goods and services purchased by low- and middle-class citizens. Isn't this the predictable outcome?
UBI payments should match current welfare payments. It costs more to administer the welfare system than what it pays out.

Middle class will probably get taxes raised enough to offset their UBI payment, so don't worry where to park your new car.

But if the leaders decide we need inflation, perhaps because private debt is to high, they can of course raise UBI.
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Re: Citizen's dividend experiment run by Rumsfeld and Cheney

Post by Maddy » Sun Apr 16, 2017 7:13 am

Well, if it's all about reducing the costs of welfare, I can think of a number of alternative approaches that do not so blatantly act to enable irresponsible, nonproductive behavior and, accordingly, the galvanization of a permanent underclass.

I'm always struck by the Left's view of poor people--most notably minorities--as constitutionally incapable of bettering themselves. To me, that's the quintessential prejudice and the most invidious kind of discrimination.
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Re: Citizen's dividend experiment run by Rumsfeld and Cheney

Post by AnotherSwede » Sun Apr 16, 2017 9:32 am

Current system:
Pay unemployed 1000 money for nothing (after testing for eligibility)
If unemployed finds work money is gone.

UBI:
Pay everyone 1000 money, no questions asked
If person works s/he pays income tax but keeps UBI.

I can't understand why this shouldnt work (in practice, politically is another question).
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Re: Citizen's dividend experiment run by Rumsfeld and Cheney

Post by Pointedstick » Sun Apr 16, 2017 9:57 am

MangoMan wrote:
Pointedstick wrote: #3 is the status quo as more and more people become dependent on government programs. The helicopter drop already happened: it's called Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and public employee pensions.
PS, at the risk of going slightly off topic, how do you see the obviously unsustainable public pension debacle ending, particularly in places where the government is not a currency issuer and the pensions can not be reduced due to constitutional law?
With the pensioners dying off in the next in 10-30 years. Their younger peers don't have the sweetheart deals that they got, because it's politically and constitutionally feasible to reduce future employees' future benefits. The cities and states just have to stay solvent for a few more decades and the problem solves itself.
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Re: Citizen's dividend experiment run by Rumsfeld and Cheney

Post by Pointedstick » Sun Apr 16, 2017 11:08 am

What's interesting is that this all seems to boil down to demographics and real production, as usual.

Imagine an island with 1,000 senior citizens, each with an annual helicopter-drop income of $25,000. Absent trade links, the money is useless and they have nothing to buy until some of them start working to provide things to their contemporaries. Some large fraction of the senior citizens is just not gonna want to work for money, preferring hobbies and relaxation. In this situation, there is an excess of purchasing power and a dearth of real goods.

But if that island consists of 1,000 healthy 25 year-olds, it's not hard to imagine that very soon there will be a thriving economy as each of them starts working and making stuff to occupy their time and get some of everyone else's purchasing power. In fact, the 20-something island probably doesn't even need the helicopter drop at all. Given some starting distribution of money, it will very quickly flow through their little society.

Today the ratio of old people to young people is really skewed in many industrialized countries. I wonder if the baby boomers all dying will resolve the issue, or whether it will become permanent as each generation has fewer children than their parents did.

Image
http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/91-003-x/2 ... 97-eng.htm (Canada, but probably the same in the USA)

People living in advanced countries just don't have a lot of babies.
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Re: Citizen's dividend experiment run by Rumsfeld and Cheney

Post by Maddy » Sun Apr 16, 2017 11:28 am

Pointedstick wrote:
MangoMan wrote:
Pointedstick wrote: #3 is the status quo as more and more people become dependent on government programs. The helicopter drop already happened: it's called Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and public employee pensions.
PS, at the risk of going slightly off topic, how do you see the obviously unsustainable public pension debacle ending, particularly in places where the government is not a currency issuer and the pensions can not be reduced due to constitutional law?
With the pensioners dying off in the next in 10-30 years. Their younger peers don't have the sweetheart deals that they got, because it's politically and constitutionally feasible to reduce future employees' future benefits. The cities and states just have to stay solvent for a few more decades and the problem solves itself.
Hey, if they can subordinate bond holders to union members with the stroke of a pen, I'm quite sure they're capable of making those pesky pension obligations disappear.
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Re: Citizen's dividend experiment run by Rumsfeld and Cheney

Post by Pointedstick » Sun Apr 16, 2017 11:41 am

Maddy wrote:Hey, if they can subordinate bond holders to union members with the stroke of a pen, I'm quite sure they're capable of making those pesky pension obligations disappear.
Actually, in a lot of cases they're not. Especially in Illinois. They've tried! But the IL Supreme Court smacks them down because it's literally written into the state constitution that pension holders always come first in the budget and pension obligations can't be diminished in any way.
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Re: Citizen's dividend experiment run by Rumsfeld and Cheney

Post by WiseOne » Mon Apr 17, 2017 7:50 am

I think part of the idea behind the "open borders" policies has been that Latin American immigrants, between their younger ages and higher birth rates, will shore up the younger demographic and help keep the Social Security/Medicare system alive. The problem of course is that they are in no position to contribute meaningfully. FICA tax on a minimum wage job doesn't amount to much, and no PS, you don't pay income taxes if you're below the poverty line. If anything, you get your FICA back and then some because of the refundable Earned Income tax credit.

UBI/Citizen's Dividend in the US is a pipe dream, anyway. You can't have it until you get rid of birthright citizenship. If a UBI ever looks like it will pass without this prerequisite, immediately buy stocks of international airlines. They'll literally double their flights with the number of pregnant women visiting the US. For the cost of a plane ticket and a short hospital stay, their baby will get a lifetime income. Sweet deal.
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Re: Citizen's dividend experiment run by Rumsfeld and Cheney

Post by Maddy » Tue Apr 18, 2017 12:53 pm

The effect of “refundable” tax credits, according to the data published by the IRS in Figure F of its report, is that the entire class of tax filers earning under $30,000 in 2014 collectively paid a net negative in federal income taxes.
http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/ter ... taxes-2014
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Re: Citizen's dividend experiment run by Rumsfeld and Cheney

Post by Pointedstick » Wed Apr 19, 2017 6:46 pm

Desert wrote: I agree with all this, but I think there is another possibility: Seniors will discover that life without earning isn't the life they want; they'll discover that their years of experience in life and business allows them to produce value in society for a decade or two longer than the current expectation. That's what I expect to see, at least among a sizable percentage of Seniors. After their standard wage slave career ends, they'll be overflowing with creativity and will go and create rather than simply consume.
I see that too... but not for money, in economically remunerative fields.
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Re: Citizen's dividend experiment run by Rumsfeld and Cheney

Post by Pointedstick » Wed Apr 19, 2017 9:52 pm

Dumb comma placement. I meant that even if they keep busy, senior citizens rarely seem to earn much money from their pursuits. I guess it's because they don't have to. But if they did, how many would want to work in, say, construction?
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Re: Citizen's dividend experiment run by Rumsfeld and Cheney

Post by Mountaineer » Thu Apr 20, 2017 4:23 am

Pointedstick wrote:Dumb comma placement. I meant that even if they keep busy, senior citizens rarely seem to earn much money from their pursuits. I guess it's because they don't have to. But if they did, how many would want to work in, say, construction?
Almost all of the senior citizens (a.k.a. retired) I know either occupy their time by working as volunteers (no pay) for church, charity, hospital, or philanthropic organizations, or are furthering their education by attending and/or teaching classes at their church or the local college extension for 'life long learning' - or some combination of the above. Very few of the older folks (greater than 70 or so) I know work in any type of physically demanding roles - bodies wear out and hurt too much for that regardless of how fit one is at 60 or 70. I agree that older people create much value for society - without monetary compensation but with great rewards for themselves and those they cheerfully serve.
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Re: Citizen's dividend experiment run by Rumsfeld and Cheney

Post by AnotherSwede » Thu Apr 20, 2017 4:38 am

The retirees I know don't do shit.
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Re: Citizen's dividend experiment run by Rumsfeld and Cheney

Post by WiseOne » Thu Apr 20, 2017 7:05 am

Mountaineer wrote:
Pointedstick wrote:Dumb comma placement. I meant that even if they keep busy, senior citizens rarely seem to earn much money from their pursuits. I guess it's because they don't have to. But if they did, how many would want to work in, say, construction?
Almost all of the senior citizens (a.k.a. retired) I know either occupy their time by working as volunteers (no pay) for church, charity, hospital, or philanthropic organizations, or are furthering their education by attending and/or teaching classes at their church or the local college extension for 'life long learning' - or some combination of the above. Very few of the older folks (greater than 70 or so) I know work in any type of physically demanding roles - bodies wear out and hurt too much for that regardless of how fit one is at 60 or 70. I agree that older people create much value for society - without monetary compensation but with great rewards for themselves and those they cheerfully serve.
Absolutely! Actually most of the people I know in their 80s and 90s do plenty - just not for a lot of pay. My mom tells a great story about how the church front desk ladies got her and my father together for a first date, and now she does that same job (at age 81). She's always telling me how busy she is. Similarly, at my workplace there's a small collection of retired professors in their 80s and 90s who attend lectures, sitting in the front row and asking questions, and hold educational sessions for residents. At my coop, retired residents serve as board or committee members, and arrange the monthly chamber music concerts and poetry readings and such.

I have a friend who is an early retiree, and she manages to stay busy also - in fact she complained to me the other day about how over-committed she is, between singing in a chorus, serving as a member of the New York Food Board (where she's almost single-handedly saving the city's food carts from regulatory destruction by our favorite mayor), and other things. I'd asked her about taking on another project that I as a fully-employed person could not possibly do: figure out how to turn a nearby vacant lot into a community garden.

Somehow I doubt most people would just stay home and watch TV.
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Re: Citizen's dividend experiment run by Rumsfeld and Cheney

Post by Pointedstick » Thu Apr 20, 2017 9:04 am

WiseOne wrote: Somehow I doubt most people would just stay home and watch TV.
The people who stay home and watch TV in retirement are the people who did that in their working lives. Not exactly the cream of the crop, but we all have a skewed view.
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Re: Citizen's dividend experiment run by Rumsfeld and Cheney

Post by AnotherSwede » Mon Apr 24, 2017 7:19 pm

MangoMan wrote:so I'm not sure how this is really different than welfare.
Sounds mostly like a state lottery.
A single person could receive up to $16,989 per year. A couple could get up to $24,027 annually.
This would of course lead to more single housholds (if it was not a time limited experiment).

And when they do a time limited study people will not act the same way as they would if they really believed the money we're for life.
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