Granting every American citizen over 21-years old a universal basic income of $13,000 a year — financed by eliminating all transfer programs (including Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, housing subsidies, household welfare payments, and farm and corporate subsidies) — would be a better policy than the status quo.
Responses
Responses weighted by each expert's confidence
| Participant | University | Vote | Confidence | Bio/Vote History |
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 Daron Acemoglu |
MIT | Bio/Vote History | ||
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Current US status quo is horrible. A more efficient and generous social safety net is needed. But UBI is expensive and not generous enough
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 Alberto Alesina |
Harvard | Did Not Answer | Bio/Vote History | |
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 Joseph Altonji |
Yale | Bio/Vote History | ||
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 Alan Auerbach |
Berkeley | Bio/Vote History | ||
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 David Autor |
MIT | Bio/Vote History | ||
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 Katherine Baicker |
University of Chicago | Bio/Vote History | ||
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 Abhijit Banerjee |
MIT | Bio/Vote History | ||
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 Marianne Bertrand |
Chicago | Bio/Vote History | ||
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 Markus Brunnermeier |
Princeton | Bio/Vote History | ||
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Total health expenses and risk will remain high for individuals. It might also shift the norm whether to work. Work = being part of society
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 Raj Chetty |
Harvard | Bio/Vote History | ||
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 Judith Chevalier |
Yale | Bio/Vote History | ||
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The current programs, while having incentive issues and other flaws, disproportionately focus on children and the elderly.
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 David Cutler |
Harvard | Bio/Vote History | ||
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 Angus Deaton |
Princeton | Bio/Vote History | ||
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 Darrell Duffie |
Stanford | Bio/Vote History | ||
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 Aaron Edlin |
Berkeley | Bio/Vote History | ||
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 Barry Eichengreen |
Berkeley | Bio/Vote History | ||
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Field experiments/empirical studies are promising, but we should wait for data (e.g. from the Oakland experiment).
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 Liran Einav |
Stanford | Bio/Vote History | ||
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 Ray Fair |
Yale | Did Not Answer | Bio/Vote History | |
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 Amy Finkelstein |
MIT | Did Not Answer | Bio/Vote History | |
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 Pinelopi Goldberg |
Yale | Did Not Answer | Bio/Vote History | |
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 Austan Goolsbee |
Chicago | Bio/Vote History | ||
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 Michael Greenstone |
University of Chicago | Bio/Vote History | ||
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better policy for who? easy to identify families worse off & good potential to wreak havoc on insurance mrkts. plus need social welf functn
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 Robert Hall |
Stanford | Bio/Vote History | ||
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Limitation to people over 21 can't be the right answer.
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 Oliver Hart |
Harvard | Bio/Vote History | ||
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Bill Gates would get 13K, which is crazy. Raising taxes is costly and so redistribution should be targeted to those who need help most.
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 Bengt Holmström |
MIT | Bio/Vote History | ||
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 Caroline Hoxby |
Stanford | Bio/Vote History | ||
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Even if the $13K # came from coherent theory/evidence (which it does NOT), this ignores all tagging logic of social insurance/optimal tax.
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 Hilary Hoynes |
Berkeley | Bio/Vote History | ||
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 Kenneth Judd |
Stanford | Bio/Vote History | ||
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13K is inadequate for anyone with no other income. Some people eligible for welfare choose to not apply, making this proposal unnecessary.
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 Steven Kaplan |
Chicago Booth | Bio/Vote History | ||
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UBI is step in right direction, but very complicated. Devil would be in details. So, lots of uncertainty.
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 Anil Kashyap |
Chicago Booth | Bio/Vote History | ||
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Lots of conflicting incentives that can discourage work in the existing rules. I have no idea if scrapping the whole system would be better
-see background information here |
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 Pete Klenow |
Stanford | Bio/Vote History | ||
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John Cochrane proposes variants that would be better.
-see background information here |
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 Jonathan Levin |
Stanford | Bio/Vote History | ||
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Provocative idea but as stated would cost ~$3 trillion, equal to all federal tax revenue. What about e.g. national defense?
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 Eric Maskin |
Harvard | Bio/Vote History | ||
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A minimum income makes sense, but not at the cost of eliminating Social Security and Meidcare.
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 William Nordhaus |
Yale | Bio/Vote History | ||
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And the children get nothing? The basic idea is sound but too simplistic as stated.
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 Emmanuel Saez |
Berkeley | Bio/Vote History | ||
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 Larry Samuelson |
Yale | Bio/Vote History | ||
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There is much to recommend a universal basic income, but specifically a 13k income while ending all other transfers is difficult to assess.
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 José Scheinkman |
Columbia University | Bio/Vote History | ||
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 Richard Schmalensee |
MIT | Bio/Vote History | ||
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A properly designed negative income tax could be part of a better policy, but replacing everything is a bad idea.
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 Carl Shapiro |
Berkeley | Bio/Vote History | ||
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 Robert Shimer |
University of Chicago | Bio/Vote History | ||
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Simplicity and improvement in some incentives are good. But largely this policy would be redistributive.
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 Richard Thaler |
Chicago Booth | Bio/Vote History | ||
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This is a dumb question. We are not going to eliminate Social Security and Medicare etc.
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 Christopher Udry |
Northwestern | Bio/Vote History | ||
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The simplicity is attractive, but deceptive. Coupled with universal health care & tax reform it could work. but we are far from that.
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