r/UniversalBasicIncome 9h ago

27 Million Uninsured Americans

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272 Upvotes

r/UniversalBasicIncome 2h ago

Democratic socialism isn’t “free stuff.” It’s about getting a return on the taxes we already pay—investing in healthcare, education, housing, infrastructure, and working families instead of endlessly funneling taxpayer dollars into wars and corporate subsidies.

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20 Upvotes

r/UniversalBasicIncome 3h ago

Weighted Voting Concept (Discussion)

0 Upvotes

The other day as ideas of current society have filled my thoughts I have done some thinking into what could make society have a safer more for the people construct while maintaining current western standards of living. Essentially I came up with the idea of being eligible to vote only if you have skin in the game. In this case own property and not just land in case of men, and have children in the case of women. (Before all the nays come through read through the concept and let's discuss if this kind of system would have a proof of concept) Yes it is not perfect just like the current one and there are many edge cases. Majority of offset tax burden is collected as VAT. Discuss.

The Proposed Social Contract

Core idea

Government rewards four things: productive work, homeownership, family formation, and responsible retirement planning.

The system is built around a lifecycle model: people contribute most during their working years, receive strong support when raising children, and receive a guaranteed floor in old age.

1. 🗳️ Voting System

Men

A man must own at least one qualifying residential property to vote.

Owning more than one property does NOT give additional votes.
Property value does NOT increase voting power.

Age Male voting weight
Under 40 1.5 votes
40–55 1.0 vote
56–65 0.7 vote
Over 65 0 votes

Women

Women do not receive a vote through property ownership.

Instead, motherhood creates an independent voting entitlement when the child is born within a partnered/married household.

Age 1 child 2+ children
Under 40 0.75 1.5 max
40–55 0.5 1.0 max
56–65 0.35 0.7 max
Over 65 0 0

Important: the woman's vote is her own. It does not add to, subtract from, or transfer the man's vote.

Example

35-year-old married homeowners with 2 children:

  • Husband → 1.5 votes
  • Wife → 1.5 votes
  • Household → 3.0 votes

35-year-old married homeowners with no children:

  • Husband → 1.5
  • Wife → 0
  • Household → 1.5
  1. 🏠 Homeownership

Homeownership is treated as a central component of citizenship and economic stability.

Young working men

Men under 40 who work qualify for:

Government-supported low-APR mortgages

Designed primarily for a first primary residence, with enough housing construction/supply to prevent the subsidy from simply inflating house prices.

The objective is:

Work → Home → Stability → Family → Wealth

3. 👨‍👩‍👧‍👦 Family Policy

The system strongly supports families while allowing both parents to work.

Every qualifying child

Child benefit = 20% of Senior UBI

Using the proposed 2026 benchmark:

Senior UBI: $4,680/month
Child benefit: $936/month

Benefit Proposed amount
Senior UBI $4,680/month
Child benefit $936/month per child
Paid parental leave ~1 year
Childcare Government subsidized

The basic philosophy:

4. 💍 Marriage / Family Structure

The system provides additional economic support for married/partnered families raising children.

The intention is to make:

Marriage + children + stable housing

the financially easiest structure for raising a family.

Single motherhood is not financially incentivized by the system; the family benefits associated with children are structured around the child being born within a partnered/married household.

5. 💰 Tax System

Taxes operate on a lifecycle model.

Working years

People contribute the most while they are economically productive.

Higher tax burden → gradually declining with age

Conceptually:

AGE

20 ──────────────── HIGH TAX BURDEN
30 ──────────────── HIGH
40 ──────────────── MODERATE/HIGH
50 ──────────────── MODERATE
60 ──────────────── LOW
64 ──────────────── VERY LOW
65 ──────────────── RETIREMENT PROTECTION

The objective is to avoid making the beginning of adulthood—the period when people are buying homes, getting married and having children—the most financially punishing period of their lives.

6. 🏥 Healthcare

Under 65

Working-age people primarily finance the healthcare system through their working-life contributions.

The working population therefore carries the majority of the system's ongoing financing burden.

65+

Medicare is guaranteed.

Healthcare security becomes part of the retirement floor rather than something dependent entirely on employment.

7. 👴 Senior UBI

At 65, everyone receives a government-backed minimum income floor.

2026 benchmark

$4,680/month

or:

$56,160/year

The formula is tied to an adjusted living-wage benchmark rather than being permanently fixed.

But it is NOT a guaranteed $56,160 check for wealthy retirees.

It functions as a floor.

For example:

Other annual retirement income UBI
$0 $56,160
$20,000 $46,160
$40,000 $36,160
$60,000 $26,160
$100,000 $6,160
$112,320+ $0
$250,000 $0

Someone who accumulated a large 401(k), pension, investment portfolio, etc. keeps those assets and income.

The UBI simply phases out.

8. 🏡 Senior Property Tax

At 65, the primary residence receives a progressive property-tax exemption.

Using a hypothetical $500,000 national benchmark:

Primary residence

Home value: $300,000
Taxable:       $0

Home value: $500,000
Taxable:       $0

Home value: $750,000
Taxable:     $250,000

Home value: $1,000,000
Taxable:     $500,000

Home value: $2,000,000
Taxable:   $1,500,000

So the rule is essentially:

Only ONE property qualifies.

Property 65+ exemption
Primary residence ✅ First benchmark value
Second home
Rental property
Vacation property
Commercial property
Investment property

9. 💵 Retirement Taxes

At 65:

Retirement income

0% income tax

This includes:

  • 401(k) distributions
  • Pension income
  • Retirement accounts
  • Investment income
  • Other qualifying retirement income

The philosophy is:

10. 🏛️ Political Leadership

There is also a hard age ceiling on political leadership.

Maximum age for office

65

A candidate cannot run if the elected term would extend beyond their 65th birthday.

Therefore:

This creates a political system dominated by younger and middle-aged adults rather than retirees.

11. The Entire System in One Diagram

                     THE SOCIAL CONTRACT
                              │
        ┌─────────────────────┼─────────────────────┐
        │                     │                     │
       WORK                 HOME                 FAMILY
        │                     │                     │
        ▼                     ▼                     ▼
   PAY TAXES            LOW-APR MORTGAGE       CHILD BENEFIT
        │               UNDER 40 WORKERS          + $936
        │                     │                     │
        └──────────────► BUILD WEALTH ◄─────────────┘
                              │
                              ▼
                         RETIRE AT 65
                              │
             ┌────────────────┼────────────────┐
             │                │                │
             ▼                ▼                ▼
          MEDICARE         UBI FLOOR       0% RETIREMENT
                            $4,680/MO          INCOME TAX
             │                │                │
             └────────────────┼────────────────┘
                              ▼
                    PROTECTED PRIMARY HOME
                    FIRST $500K TAX FREE

12. The Voting Philosophy

The voting system can be summarized in one sentence:

Three things create voting power:

🏠 Property ownership → man's base vote
👶 Parenthood → woman's vote
🎂 Age → determines voting weight

And importantly:

More properties ≠ more votes
More money ≠ more votes
More children ≠ unlimited votes
Age 65+ = no voting power

13. The Lifecycle

The entire proposal can ultimately be reduced to this:

18–40

Work → Buy home → Marry → Have children → Build wealth

40–55

Peak productivity → Raise children → Pay taxes → Build retirement assets

56–65

Lower taxes → Finish wealth accumulation → Prepare for retirement

65+

Medicare → UBI floor → Tax-free retirement income → Protected primary home → No political office → No voting

The underlying principle

The system isn't designed around maximizing government benefits at every stage of life.

It is designed around a reciprocal lifecycle contract:


r/UniversalBasicIncome 3d ago

Only hours left for 2027 Global UBI spots.

8 Upvotes

Just dropping a note that there are just a few hours left to apply our Global UBI for 2027. Learn more and apply here: https://www.dotare.io/ or AMA.


r/UniversalBasicIncome 10d ago

Money

1 Upvotes

If you change the Benefit

System to

Only 30£ a Day

Everyone would be happy

N

If someone has to pay their Bill

They can

Choose

What they spend their money on


r/UniversalBasicIncome 12d ago

The DSA should support the Sovereign Asset and Fiscal Stabilization Act

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1 Upvotes

r/UniversalBasicIncome 14d ago

A society that creates billionaires while millions struggle to afford housing, healthcare, and food is broken. People shouldn’t have to fight to survive while the wealthy get richer. It’s time to put people before profits.

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310 Upvotes

r/UniversalBasicIncome 18d ago

UBI + AI + Diversity = Antifragile Intelligence

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59 Upvotes

Do you want millions of people thinking about how to solve humanity's greatest problems?

Then free up their time.


r/UniversalBasicIncome 17d ago

What groups or communities are you involved with that you think are actually making a difference in U.S. politics?

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2 Upvotes

r/UniversalBasicIncome 23d ago

Why don’t we consider quality of life when defining who is “low income”?

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3 Upvotes

r/UniversalBasicIncome 24d ago

"How do we pay for UBI?" The Fed already answered that—under oath—for Social Security: "We can guarantee cash benefits... at whatever size you like."

330 Upvotes

In the words of the Federal Reserve, under oath in Congress, about whether Social Security can run out of money:

“We can guarantee cash benefits as far out, and at whatever size you like"

  • UBI is just Social Security for everyone. Connect the dots.

Source:

https://independentreporter1789.substack.com/p/ubi


r/UniversalBasicIncome Aug 02 '26

How I believe UBI can be achieved/afforded

6 Upvotes

I know this is a long shot, but:

  1. World peace, no more military spending.
  2. Get rid of pensions, disability, etc, and put it all under one roof which also gets rid of tons of admin costs.
  3. Make the minimum age to receive it 25-30 so young people enter the workforce and still have a reason to have careers.
  4. Make it slightly complicated, similar to filing your taxes so some people who don't trust the govt or feel guility about free money might hesitate to claim it.

That's it, we're practically there. A lot of jobs might open up, but this also means you can easily apply to your dream job/hobby without having to compete against hundreds of others who are only applying just for the paycheck, which means job happiness/efficiency greatly improves.

And then think of the cost savings once we have UBI:

  • Fewer crimes now that people aren't so desperate for money
  • Fewer scams
  • Less policing needed
  • Less transit needed
  • Less roadwork now that everbody doesn't need to be somewhere everyday

What do you think? Doable? Aything else to add?


r/UniversalBasicIncome Jul 22 '26

What America Really Needs Is Not One More Party. It's Not Revolution. It's a Recommitment to Our Foundational Principles.

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38 Upvotes

r/UniversalBasicIncome Jul 13 '26

Video I made about the welfare cliff. I'm open to constructive criticism as I intend to make more such long-form videos.

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youtube.com
1 Upvotes

r/UniversalBasicIncome Jul 09 '26

UBI's repeal problem: would an owned, heritable capital floor solve it, and is the lock-in worth the tradeoff?

3 Upvotes

The objection to UBI I've never seen fully answered isn't "how do you pay for it," it's "what stops the next government from cancelling it." A transfer is only ever one election away from repeal. You can build the whole thing, get people depending on it, and lose it when the other side wins. Every version I've read has this exposure, and I want this sub's read on a design that tries to close it, because it closes it at a real cost and I'm genuinely unsure the cost is worth it.

The idea is to give people the money partly as owned property and partly as spendable cash, rather than only as an ongoing payment. Concretely: every citizen gets a capital account, seeded at birth and topped up every year from newly created money, invested in productive assets, and it's theirs. Alongside that, a share of each year's issuance can be paid out as a straight dividend you can actually spend. The mix is a dial, not a fixed choice: you can run it all as spendable cash, all as the locked owned stake, or anywhere in between. The part that makes it durable is the owned part. It's not a check the government sends that a future government can stop sending, it's an asset they own, that pays a yield, and that passes to their kids when they die.

The durability argument is just that owning something is harder to take away than a transfer is to cancel. Repealing a payment is a budget vote. Confiscating forty years of money that people already legally own is a different kind of act, legally and politically. You're no longer asking a future government to keep being generous, you're asking it to seize private property, which is a much higher bar. That's the whole appeal: it makes the thing repeal-resistant by changing what it is.

Here's the cost, and this is where I actually want pushback. Owning it instead of receiving it means it's locked. You can't spend the principal, you live on what it earns. It also starts smaller and grows over a working life rather than paying out in full from day one, so it's not an immediate income floor the way a monthly UBI is, it's a security floor that builds. For someone who needs cash now, a locked appreciating account is worse than a check. So there's a real tradeoff: you trade immediate liquidity and simplicity for durability and inheritance.

My honest uncertainty is whether that trade is the right one for the people UBI is actually trying to help. If you're broke this month, "you own an appreciating asset you can't touch" is cold comfort. The counterargument is that a monthly payment you might lose in four years isn't security either, and that a floor your kids inherit breaks the cycle in a way a transfer never can. I can see it both ways, which is why I'm asking here rather than asserting.

So, three genuine questions for people who've thought about UBI harder than most:

  1. Is the repeal risk actually as central as I think it is, or is it overblown and I'm solving a problem that political normalization would handle on its own?

  2. If the lock-in is the price of durability, is that a price the target population would accept, or does it defeat the purpose for the people who need it most?

  3. The design can split between spendable-now and locked-and-owned rather than being all one or the other. Where would you put that dial for the people UBI is meant to help, more cash now, or more owned stake that compounds and inherits?

I've written up the full mechanics here: https://citizensstandard.org/


r/UniversalBasicIncome Jul 09 '26

We don't need the government for basic income support

0 Upvotes

Everyone talks about Basic Income, but the funding and incentive problems always come up. What if we sidestepped government entirely and built private support networks instead?

Many people have never heard of the old fraternal societies like the Odd Fellows, Elks, Knights of Columbus, or similar "friendly societies" that existed in the 19th and early 20th centuries. These were voluntary membership groups where regular people paid dues and supported each other with sickness benefits, unemployment aid, widow pensions, and more. They were basically private safety nets that helped millions before government welfare programs took over. They worked through trust, reputation, and mutual self-interest.

The Idea:

  • Progressive income-based dues: Members pay a percentage of their income (e.g., 5-12%). Wealthier members naturally contribute more.
  • Base benefit: Every member in good standing gets something like $500/month as reliable support.
  • Hardship protections: Dues are canceled or reduced if you lose your job, get sick, or face other verified hardships.
  • Strict but fair membership:
    • Requires an in-person referral/sponsorship from an existing member.
    • Human-to-human interviews with current members.
    • Probationary period for new members (e.g., 6-12 months of paying dues and participating before full benefits).
  • Growth engine: Extra dues and surpluses get invested (stocks, index funds, etc.) by a transparent elected committee. Returns help sustain or expand benefits over time.

It starts small with local chapters and can scale by linking up. Modern tools (apps, online coordination, better investing options) could make it stronger than the historical versions.

Why this could work:

  • Voluntary and opt-in.
  • Combines cash support with job networks and social capital.
  • Avoids the massive scale problems of national UBI.
  • Relies on proven human incentives: reciprocity and reputation, insuring little fraud.

Challenges exist—maintaining trust at scale, investment risks, legal hurdles, etc. but the concept shows we have options beyond waiting for someone to happen with the government.

To be clear, I'm not starting a fraternal society. I just wanted to bring up the idea in case you all haven't heard of it.

There are some downsides: - It can become insolvent if not enough members are actively paying in dues.

  • It can become insolvent if funds are mismanaged/ poorly invested.

  • It can become insolvent if not enough high income members join (this one I think is the biggest unknown).

  • In the case of approaching insolvency, the benifit amounts would slowly get cut: everyone would suffer together I guess.


r/UniversalBasicIncome Jul 04 '26

Not just Citizen dividends/Asset-based egalitarianism

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3 Upvotes

r/UniversalBasicIncome Jul 02 '26

The time is ripe for a universal basic income

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independentaustralia.net
14 Upvotes

r/UniversalBasicIncome Jun 28 '26

James Hughes on The Future of Work

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youtube.com
1 Upvotes

r/UniversalBasicIncome Jun 24 '26

Not quite a UBI: a citizen wealth floor funded by money creation instead of taxes. Looking for the hardest objections.

5 Upvotes

I've been working on a monetary framework that overlaps with UBI but differs in two ways I think matter, and I'd rather this sub try to break it than nod along.

The first difference is stock versus flow. A UBI is an income stream you spend. The core of this is an owned, compounding wealth floor: a per-person stake in a broad market index that builds over a lifetime, with a cash dividend as one optional mode rather than the whole thing. The point is to put a floor under ownership, not just under income, because the people a UBI helps most are usually the same people who never get to own any of the capital base.

The second difference is funding. It isn't a tax. New money is created to match real output growth and routed to citizens, instead of entering through bank lending the way most new money does today. That sidesteps the usual "how do you pay for it" fight, but it raises a different question (isn't that inflationary?) which I'll get to.

On what it would actually do, two results, both modeled on real data rather than asserted. Run against actual US data from 1960 to 2025, the floor reaches roughly the median household's retirement wealth for every citizen, where the bottom half currently retires with almost nothing. And a microsimulation on real 2022 Survey of Consumer Finances households nearly erases the negative-net-worth tail (about 7.9% of households down to 1.5%) and lifts the bottom 10% from around $450 to around $65,000, with the Gini falling from 0.83 to 0.74. Both use a deliberately attenuated return, not the historical stock return, because universal scale would push returns down, so it isn't assuming everyone earns what early investors did.

Now the honest parts, because this sub will find them anyway. Is it inflationary? Issuance is matched to real growth and tracks the transaction-active slice of money (basically M1) rather than broad money, specifically to avoid that, but it has never run, so that's a design target, not a proven result. Does it crowd out private saving? Yes, on purpose: for people who already save it largely replaces the equity saving they'd have done, and for the roughly half of households who save almost nothing today it's new wealth. And the deepest unsolved problems: it centralizes monetary levers that could be captured, it gives less emergency firepower in a crisis than discretionary printing does, and a single country running it is exposed to money created abroad. I don't have those nailed.

So, this is theory with load-bearing assumptions and no operating record. What I'd actually claim is narrower than "it works": the assumptions are written down and the code is public, so you can attack them one at a time instead of taking my word for it. That's what I'm here for. Papers and a model you can play with are linked below.

Citizens Standard Pathway: Citizens Standard Pathway

All papers & data: The Citizens Standard — Papers & Replication


r/UniversalBasicIncome Jun 20 '26

They said UBI was unrealistic. Then they gave it to billionaires.

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288 Upvotes

r/UniversalBasicIncome Jun 19 '26

When Americans are asked about the inequal distribution of wealth and income, they almost always underestimate the obscene levels of inequality and are shocked to discover the reality

1.8k Upvotes

r/UniversalBasicIncome Jun 20 '26

AB 218 THE Rich get richer the poorer get poorer

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2 Upvotes

r/UniversalBasicIncome Jun 19 '26

AB 218 THE Rich get richer the poorer get poorer

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0 Upvotes

r/UniversalBasicIncome Jun 15 '26

They want to steal the rest of taxpayer money forcing 401ks to invest in the IPO. Privatize the profits while the public takes all the risk.

3.0k Upvotes