I did the math a few years ago on how much is already being spent on all the different kinds of welfare at all levels of government. When you divide it out by the population, it comes to about 3,000 USD per person.

If you reallocate all that evenly to make it universal, a family of 4 would get 12,000 USD per year. Of course, the people already receiving welfare benefits and seeing them cut might be upset about that.

But that's money that is already being spent.

Going from 3,000 per person (all ages) to 12,000 USD per year per adult means about 3x the money.

So problem #1: where does the money come from? Yang says it will be paid for primarily with a VAT and economic growth. Of course, a VAT will increase consumer prices in the end, so prices will rise in order to give people these handouts. Depending on how you tweak the model, you might get a small arbitrage out of it. But the net benefit is certainly going to be far less than 1,000 USD/month.

Problem #2: does giving people money make life better? There have been a few experiments run around the world and results have been mixed.

The thing is, in the US, life is actually pretty good. There are already programs to help the needy. In terms of absolute numbers, people who lack the very basics of shelter, food, and so on are very low and largely a function of mental illness.

There are around 300,000 homeless people in the US. That sounds like a lot, but compared to the population it's about 0.1%.

The statistics you see thrown around about "food insecurity" are largely bogus. Anybody responding to a survey saying they weren't sure where one meal was going to come from in the past 12 months is counted as "food insecure."

According to https://www.worldlifeexpectancy.com/cause-of-death/malnutrition/by-country/, 64 people out of 10,000,000 die from malnutrition-related causes in the US each year. That translates to about 2,000 people a year. Individual tragedies, yes, but not a systemic problem.

So, will people feel better or richer or anything? None of the experiments conducted so far have really been universal, so it's hard to say. My guess is no because it's not absolute wealth that fires off those neurotransmitters, but relative wealth. If you are doing better than your neighbor, you feel more secure in the world and generally happier. If you and your neighbor both get the same payments, that doesn't improve the relative position.

And then there is problem #3: is UBI a moral idea? Obviously, the proponents of UBI see no moral quandary with taxation or the whole give a man a fish idea. For me, it's the antithesis of everything we know about elevating people by helping them discover their own strengths. Yes, there are people out there who cannot cope with the world, and they should receive our charity. But we're talking about 10% of the population then, not 100%.