How does UBI compare to existing safety nets?
Hoynes and Rothstein develop a framework for describing transfer programs, flexible enough to encompass most existing programs as well as UBIs, and use this framework to compare various UBIs to the existing constellation of programs in the United States. A UBI would direct much larger shares of transfers to childless, non-elderly, non-disabled households than existing programs, and much more to middle-income rather than poor households. They argue that a UBI large enough to increase transfers to low-income families would be enormously expensive while it is unclear, as indicated by UBI pilot studies, that such program will increase human capital and labor supply in the long-run.
The figure below shows the large variation in the amount of (non-health) government transfers across groups in the US.
Universal Basic Income in the US and Advanced Countries
Authors: Hilary W. Hoynes, Jesse Rothstein
From: University of California, Berkeley/div>
