by Karl Widerquist, Jack Rossbach | Feb 3, 2026 | News, Research
Abstract
This article estimates the cost of Universal Basic Income (UBI) sufficient to
eliminate poverty in the United States. It uses the most recent microdata available
from the Census Bureau through its Current Population Survey (CPS) public-use
microdata files and references historical income data from the Annual Social and
Economic Supplements (ASEC) going back to 1967. It finds that UBI (or an equivalent
guaranteed income) sufficient to eliminate official poverty is surprisingly affordable
and that the cost of UBI as a percentage of GDP has been falling steadily for more than
50 years. Estimates based on the most recent data (from 2024) show the net cost of a
UBI set at $16,000 per adult and $8,000 per child (slightly higher than the official
poverty line) with a 50 % marginal tax rate is approximately $783.7 billion per year,
which is about 2.67 % of GDP. In inflation-adjusted terms, the current cost of a
poverty-line UBI as a percentage of GDP has fallen significantly from 9.35 %of GDP in
1967 to 4.95 %in 1995, 3.70 %in 2015, and 2.67 %in 2024. Therefore, as a percentage of
GDP, the current cost of a poverty-line UBI is less than one-third (28.6 %) of what it
would have cost when the guaranteed income was under discussion in the United
States in 1967. This article also updates and significantly improves on calculations
made in the article “The Cost of Basic Income: Back-of-the-Envelope Calculations”
which appeared in Basic Income Studies in 2017.
To read the full article, click here.
by Karl Widerquist | Oct 26, 2024 | Events, News
Buford Farris, a stalwart of the basic income movement, died peacefully at aged 98 in Austin, Texas on October 5, 2024. His work was important in keeping the movement for a basic income guarantee alive during the difficult days in the late twentieth century and in building the movement again in the early years of the U.S. Basic Income Guarantee Network.
To read more click here.
by Karl Widerquist | Sep 18, 2023 | Opinion, The Indepentarian
My main perspective is an argument with four premises:
1. It’s wrong for anyone to come between anyone else and the resources they need to survive in almost all circumstances.
2. Freedom is the power to say no.
3. A private property economy (or a socialist economy) without basic income interferes with people as they try to use resources to survive.
4. By doing 3, economic rules take people’s freedom away.
5. (Conclusion): private property or socialist economies require a basic income large enough to meet people’s basic needs.
I’ve written a lot justifying each of these premises, explaining & exploring what they mean, justifying the connection between these premises and the conclusion, replying to potential objections, making addition arguments for basic income, and exploring other conclusions that follow from my basic moral perspective, but–near as I can tell–this is the heart of my political theory.
by Karl Widerquist | Aug 10, 2023 | News
The last post in my 18-part blog series, “Mandatory Participation on Trial,” is now online. Here is the lead paragraph:
According to Henry David Thoreau, “the mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.” I think it’s more accurate to say the mass of people lead lives of manufactured desperation. We, as a people, are not in a desperate struggle to produce enough food, shelter, clothing, and other necessities of life for everyone. We can do that with ease. We worked our way out of that struggle long ago, if it was ever real at all. We are instead in a challenging struggle to provide more luxuries and leisure without destroying the environment that sustains us. Yet, the mass of people as individuals still often find themselves in a desperate struggle to maintain access to food, shelter, clothing, and other necessities of life.
Read the full text here.
by Karl Widerquist | Apr 14, 2023 | News
I’ve started a new 17-part series, called Mandatory Participation on Trial, on my blog. Part 1 just came out April 13. Sixteen more will come out once per week for the next 16 weeks. It counterattacks critics of UBI by grouping all systems without any form of guaranteed income into a mandatory-participation model, and by criticizing that model. I think you’ll be interested and so will most people who visit this site.
