What do you do about local differences in cost of living? $1K/mo will get you pretty far in a lot of the US, but it won't even cover rent in SF.
So now you have to come up with a system to calculate the COL differential between regions. You also have to come up with an enforcement mechanism to prevent people from saying they live in SF when they really live in a small-town.
Sounds like you'd only reduce overhead by a little.
This problem solves itself. Poor people move to cities because of limited economic opportunity where they live. You can make more money, but the cost of living rises in proportion. If you make 28K no matter where you live, then it makes sense for a lot of people to optimize by staying in or moving to places with a low cost of living. Maybe a lot of them will watch TV all day, but at least they'll be fixing up an old house so they have a decent place to live, and contributing to their community.
You absolutely don't give people more money who live in more expensive areas. Actually, by allowing people who don't really want to live in the Bay Area to move someplace cheaper and simultaneously increase their standard of living, you'd actually end up reducing price pressure in overheated real estate markets like SF, and propping it up in super-cheap areas like Detroit.
Then you have the issue of paying for it! What would you have to pay in order to give someone a basic standard of living in SF? $24K might fly for a young single person, but what about the single mom with four kids? That would be more like $50K.
So you just pay every person in the US more than the average income?
Places like SF and NY are more expensive because there is more demand to live there and a limited supply of places to live. Presumably if you're on a basic income, you won't be able to afford to live in the "most desirable" areas in the entire country.
This would be akin to guaranteeing everyone a basic transportation and then having someone say "Well, actually, I wanted a BMW."
As some economists have pointed out recently, the future will look back on us as nucking futs that we subsidize the poor to live in downtown Manhattan.
> $1K/yr will get you pretty far in a lot of the US
I don't think $83.33/mo will get you pretty far anywhere in the US.
> So now you have to come up with a system to calculate the COL differential between regions. You also have to come up with an enforcement mechanism to prevent people from saying they live in SF when they really live in a small-town.
No, you don't have to do either of these things. You could do them, but the benefits of the first need to be weighed against costs that come with the need to do the second if you do the first.
So now you have to come up with a system to calculate the COL differential between regions. You also have to come up with an enforcement mechanism to prevent people from saying they live in SF when they really live in a small-town.
Sounds like you'd only reduce overhead by a little.