In 2014 a European court sided with a Spanish man attempting to have links to a negative story about him removed from the online search engine Google. Invoking a version of what’s known as the “right to be forgotten,” the European Union Court of Justice said that citizens have the right to ask that links be removed if they contain information that is “inadequate, irrelevant or no longer relevant.” Should we have the same right to be forgotten in the US?

Proponents of a right to be forgotten claim that, for privacy reasons, search engines should have to remove outdated or extremely personal information from their search results. “It’s about privacy and dignity,” says Michael Fertik the founder of Reputation.com, a company that helps customers clean up their online information. “If Sony or Disney wants fifty thousand videos removed from YouTube, Google removes them with no questions asked. If your daughter is caught kissing someone on a cell-phone home video, you have no option of getting it down. That’s wrong. The priorities are backward.”

Proponents further argue that privacy is not only a human right, but an essential component of autonomy. In other words, the space protected by privacy is the only space in which human endeavor can flourish. Far from being a tool of censorship, the right to be forgotten is the only protection we have against self-censorship. And since the obligation to remove applies only to the links posted by search engines, it does not trample on the rights of internet content creators, such as media outlets, who are still free to publish information as they see fit.

Opponents argue that the right to be forgotten is a major abridgment not only of the right to speak but also of the right to acquire information. Such a “right” essentially amounts to government-mandated censorship. As a Bloomberg editorial put it: “Airbrushing history, even with the best of intentions, is almost always a very bad idea…And such a sweeping new right is sure to have unintended consequences – for starters, by potentially depriving the public of useful information.”

In addition, opponents contend the right to be forgotten will place an overly complex and costly imposition on search-engine companies. What requests should be honored? Which denied? On what basis? How does one distinguish illegitimate from legitimate requests? When should the public interest trump the right to be forgotten? Who makes that decision? How will disputes be arbitrated? The sheer volume of requests to remove links would likely overwhelm the ability of search engines to property evaluate requests, leading to inconsistent and arbitrary compliance,

So what do you think? Should Americans have a right to be forgotten to protect their privacy and dignity? Or would it infringe on other more essential rights? Is the trade-off worth it? Why? Why not?

The First Amendment: separation of church and state, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, right to peaceably assemble and to petition the government.

The Second Amendment protects the right to keep and bear arms (in accordance with longstanding English common law: “…a public allowance under due restrictions, of the natural right of resistance and self-preservation, when the sanctions of society and laws are found insufficient to restrain the violence of oppression.”)

Detour! The Supreme Court currently considers general bans on gun ownership to be unconstitutional (e.g., all guns banned for whole communities) but is fine with tighter controls on individual gun ownership (see District of Columbia v. Heller). So, other than its symbolic value to gun control opponents and the archaic reference to militias, what is gained by getting rid of the 2^nd Amendment? And please don’t say “gun control”, since (per Scalia et al) the 2^nd Amendment does not contravene restrictions on individual gun ownership. (For the record, I’m a big fan of gun control but see any movement to repeal the 2^nd Amendment as pretty much pointless). And if the inclusion of the outdated “militia” reference is sufficiently egregious to justify repeal, then why is that such an issue with the 2^nd Amendment and not the 3^rd Amendment? Speaking of which….

The Third Amendment: “no Soldier shall, in time of peace, be quartered in any house”, etc. ‘Nuff said.

The Fourth Amendment guards against unreasonable searches and seizures, along with requiring search warrants supported by probable cause.

The Fifth Amendment protects against double jeopardy and self-incrimination and guarantees the rights to due process, grand jury screening of criminal indictments, and compensation for the seizure of private property under eminent domain.

The Sixth Amendment establishes the right to a speedy and public trial; the right to trial by an impartial jury; the right to be informed of criminal charges; the right to confront witnesses; the right to compel witnesses to appear in court; and, the right to assistance of counsel.

The Seventh Amendment is about the right of trial by jury.

The Eighth Amendment says excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishment.

The Ninth Amendment clarifies that the Bill of Rights, does not constitute an explicit and exhaustive listing of all individual rights.

The Tenth Amendment reinforces the principles of separation of powers and federalism by providing that powers not granted to the federal government by the Constitution, nor prohibited to the states, are reserved to the states or the people.

Of course, the Bill of Rights is not sacred and an Amendment that does more harm than good should be repealed, or at least revised. But the Rights represent core principles and protections and should not to be tinkered with or rejected lightly. That the Bill of Rights is a product of a certain place and time isn’t to say that these Rights are mere historical products. To recognize the special status of the Bill of Rights doesn’t have to reflect fear of change or an idealization of tradition but rests on an understanding of how essential these Rights are to civil society.

Commentary on: The Upsurge in Uncertain Work by Robert Reich
Published on Monday, August 24, 2015 by RobertReich.org

In this opinion piece, Reich argues that “uncertain” work – with “no predictable earnings or hours” is becoming a pervasive reality in America. To quote: “It’s estimated that in five years over 40 percent  of the US labor force will have uncertain work; in a decade, most of us.”

Trouble is, that “40 percent” link doesn’t work. Trouble is, Reich doesn’t include any data to back up his gloomy picture of where the US labor market is heading. Guess I’m going to have to do the work for him. My go-to resource? The Bureau of Labor Statistics, of course! I recommend the BLS to anyone interested in making accurate statements about the state of working America.

Reich argues that workers are becoming “fungible” – that is, interchangeable and easily replaced. Hence, the uncertainty about hours and earnings. One would think fungibility and uncertainty would be reflected in actual labor market conditions, such as less full-time work, more layoffs, and an increasing number of multiple job holders. But it just ain’t so.

Let’s start with working hours. The BLS publication Trends in hours of work since the mid-1970s  examined trends in working hours in the US between 1976 and 1993 and concluded that “the average length of the workweek for most groups has changed little since the mid-1970s”. In 1993, 76% of wage and salary workers were employed full-time (35 hours a week or more). And in July 2015? BLS stats showed that 80% of workers were full-time. I don’t see a trend here – at least, not a trend for reduced working hours.

Ok, so maybe, per Reich, people are having to work multiple jobs to get their full-time hours. Luckily, the BLS has the numbers: fewer workers hold multiple jobs now than they did 20 years ago, although the total number employed is much greater. So much for that theory.

Well, then, perhaps the uncertainty that Reich sees all around him is due to higher rates of layoffs. Maybe people are super-nervous about losing their jobs. Luckily, the BLS does annual Job Opening and Turnover Surveys – and surprise, surprise – the layoff and discharge rates in the last year were less than what they were in 2005, and there is  no trend that more workers are getting separated from employers. Furthermore, the current median time with the same employer has been  trending upward  trending upward for the last 20 years and is currently 4.6 years.

Reich’s proposed fixes to the perceived problem of uncertainty are also questionable. First: “Whatever party – contractor, client, customer, agent, or intermediary – pays more than half of someone’s income, or provides more than half their working hours, should be responsible for all the labor protections and insurance an employee is entitled to.” Please think that through. For instance, a worker’s hours may vary by employer/contracting party every week. (This situation is commonplace for many of the self-employed – think handymen and bookkeepers). Such a system would create perverse incentives. For instance, contracting parties may want to minimize the amount of work they send any single person (not to mention reducing what they pay) to avoid reaching the threshold for benefits, harming both the contractor and the contractee. And how would the contracting party even know that they pay more than half someone’s income? Will there be a minimum number of hours worked before this kicks in? Who will be keeping tabs?

Reich also proposed a rather generous one-year “income insurance” for workers whose monthly income has dipped below 50% of their five-year average. How would this affect worker and job search behavior? One way would be to incentivize dropping out of the job market for those who are so inclined. The result would be a lower labor market participation rate. Anything that significantly lowers labor market participation rates will reduce tax revenue and GDP, which weakens the safety net and ultimately harms more workers than it helps. Plus, extended (unemployment or income) insurance isn’t an unmitigated good – while essential during economic slowdowns, in recovering economies, it can serve as a drag on further growth. There is plenty of research to bear this out – but, then again, Reich isn’t an economist and maybe he’s just not keeping up with the field.

On the other hand, a modest Basic Income Guarantee along the lines I’ve proposed in previous posts would go a long way to softening the blows of outrageous fortune, without bankrupting the state, adding to the regulatory and tax burden, or disincentivizing work.

The private sector can’t do everything – we need government, regulations, and taxes. But why are government agencies so encumbered by bureaucratic inefficiency? Here are some possible answers:

1. Staying within budget often means next year’s budget will be smaller – government agencies can’t pocket savings (and government employees don’t receive bonuses for savings or great income-generating ideas) so efficiency, risk-taking, and creative problem-solving often go unrewarded.
2. Government agencies are subject to constraints that prevent them from “allocating the factors of production” as optimal – that is, they cannot move people and equipment to where it is most needed
3. Government agencies must serve goals not of their own choosing. These goals may be politically motivated, unreasonable or impractical, but they cannot be rejected.
4. As tax-funded enterprises, government agencies have a public mission and their actions are closely scrutinized to make sure the public good is being upheld. So individual players in the system will error on the side of caution, which is rational. But if you multiply the millions and millions of individual actions, each makes sense within its local context, but the net effect is overall inefficiency, which isn’t doing the public much good at all.
5. Government workers operate under many rules. Official routines tend to be characterized by excessive complexity, e.g., follow these procedures, use those forms, buy only from these vendors, which makes bureaucrats worry more about process than outcomes.
6. Once government workers are hired and have passed a probationary period, keeping one’s job has less to do with personal qualities than with broader issues, like budgets and the political winds. Initiative, creativity and risk-taking are poorly rewarded. Adequacy is enough. As long as you just do your job, you’re likely to get raises and promotions according to the rules.

All these factors conspire to disincentivize going beyond the call of duty. Proactive and creative people would shrink under such a regime. And they do, or they end up working in the private sector.  Ok, accepted: government organizations are inherently inefficient and risk-averse. Next question: is that such a bad thing, and if so, what can be done about it? Stay tuned.

A couple references:

http://www.the-american-interest.com/2012/03/04/james-q-wilson-1931-2012/

Wilson. 1989. Bureaucracy: What government agencies do and why they do it. In Brief

There is no such thing as the “true” value of units exchanged in a market place. In the market place, value boils down to the point of overlap between what buyers are willing to pay and what sellers are willing to accept. Value is not a property of the object but of the transaction. On the buyer’s side, value is informed by consideration of opportunity costs, alternatives, scarcity, and current market rate (among other things).

People are paid differently for their services. When the pay is in the stratosphere – as in the case of some CEOs – many of us become outraged. “That’s obscene! They don’t deserve that!” The disgust tends to focus on the individual receiving the pay. But pay is another way of saying market value and market value is determined by both sides of a transaction. So an equally indignant question could be “Why were the shareholders willing to pay one person so much money?!”

That changes the focus though. It’s easier to vilify those on the receiving end of huge pay packages – evil CEOs! But it’s shareholders who agree to these packages – and they want to pay big. In fact, shareholders have gotten increasingly generous since SEC reforms forced companies to be more transparent about executive pay. As James Surowiecki put it: “…shareholders, it turns out, rather than balking at big pay packages, approve most of them by margins that would satisfy your average tinpot dictator. Last year, all but two per cent of compensation packages got majority approval, and seventy-four per cent of them received more than ninety per cent approval.”

Granted, in making my point, I’ve used the term “market value” somewhat loosely. The technical definition is: “the estimated amount for which a property should exchange on the date of valuation between a willing buyer and a willing seller in an arm’s-length transaction after proper marketing wherein the parties had each acted knowledgeably, prudently, and without compulsion.” (International Valuation Standards 1 – Market Value Basis of Valuation, Seventh Edition).

Actually, the technical definition is of use here. The SEC regulations making CEO pay more transparent were an attempt to create conditions conducive to proper market valuations – that is, conditions in which “the parties had each acted knowledgeably, prudently, and without compulsion.” The idea being that executive wannabes won’t be able to demand outrageous pay packages because transparency will give the shareholders the necessary information to make reasonable pay decisions. Hah!

So, the shareholders are equally to blame for high CEO pay. Who are these shareholders? They are us. Or, at least, about half of us. That’s right: according to the Fed, in 2013 48.8% of Americans owned stocks (directly and indirectly). That includes money invested for 401Ks and pension funds – ultimately money that will benefit a much broader swath of American society than the despised 1%. Who are the villains now?

“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.”     –Rainer Maria Rilke

Fine for the world of contemplation – but what about the world of consequences? Both action and inaction have consequences. To the extent that these consequences matter to us, we have to decide what to do and what not to do – often under conditions of uncertainty and risk.

None of this has to do with “free will”. Even if we wanted to, we can’t refrain from making decisions. The brain is a decision-making machine. Different brain regions are involved in different types of decisions. Whatever brain region is involved, the neuronal processes are pretty much the same: neurons compile and weigh incoming evidence; neurons make rapid and complex probability calculations based on the accumulating evidence. Voila: a decision! We make thousands of them every day.

Insofar as we cannot read the future, we cannot know with certainty the chain of effects put into play by our decisions. Decisions are partly acts of faith, including the decision to do nothing. Even if we are standing still, we are taking a leap into the unknown.

For more on the neuroscience of decision-making, see: http://www.brainfacts.org/sensing-thinking-behaving/awareness-and-attention/articles/2009/decision-making/)

Here’s a summary of the U.S. Department of Justice National Institute of Justice’s “Five Things about Deterrence” July 2014:

1. The certainty of being caught is a vastly more powerful deterrent than the punishment.
2. Sending an offender to prison isn’t a very effective way to deter crime.
3. Police deter crime by increasing the perception that criminals will be caught and punished.
4. Increasing the severity of punishment does little to deter crime.
5. There is no proof that the death penalty deters criminals.

DOJ Source: Daniel Nagin, “Deterrence in the 21st Century,” in Crime and Justice in America: 1975-2025 (ed. Michael Tonry, University of Chicago Press, 2013).

Bottom line: more police, less prison time. The DOJ piece says prison doesn’t have much deterrence effect – but if it had no deterrence effect, being caught would have no deterrence effect. How much prison or jail time is enough to make one think twice before committing to some criminal act? I’m thinking one or two years on average, maybe five years max for non-violent crimes. These sentences would be more in line with incarceration policy in other developed countries (see, for instance, Finding Direction: Expanding Criminal Justice Options by Considering Policies of Other Nations by the Justice Policy institute).

Since lengthy sentences have little deterrence value, why should prison time for non-violent crime ever be more than a few years? Let’s reduce prison sentences for non-violent offenders and put the money saved to what truly has deterrence value: more police. And then couple greater police presence with more effort to re-integrate ex-cons into society. Reinstate eligibility for school financial aid. Expand tax credits for employers hiring ex-cons. Increase job placement services and other forms of integration assistance after release.

We should also let out many of the aging prisoners who pose little threat to public safety, even though they originally committed violent crimes. Violence is mostly a young man’s game. Just 14% of violent felons are 40 or older. Recidivism rates also decline with age and, ironically, those with the lowest rearrest rates are those who had been in prison for homicide.

If we let out a bunch of old codgers and reduced prison sentences for most non-violent offenders (about half of the state and federal prison population) so that the overall prison incarceration rate goes down by a third and could then transfer the savings to police salaries, how many extra police would that pay for? About 200,000 – increasing US police numbers from 780,000 to 980,000.

Think about how 25% more police would boost crime solve rates. Right now these rates are abysmal: in 2013 the US crime clearance rate in the United States for all crimes was 40.6% with the following breakdown: 14% for motor vehicle theft, 13% for burglary, 21% for arson, 22% for larceny, 29% for robbery, 40% for forcible rape, 58% for aggravated assault, and 64% for murder and non-negligent homicide.

Of course, a higher solve rate would initially increase the jail and prison populations – but in pretty quick order – thanks to the robust deterrence effect of increased police presence – crime rates would go down, as would the number of incarcerated.

How I arrived at my figures:

Per the Bureau of Labor Statistics: the median annual pay for a correctional officer is about $40,000. In 2012, there were about 470,000 correctional officers in the US. The median annual pay for police officers is about $57,000. In 2012, there were about 780,000 police officers in the US. It costs an average of $31,000 year per inmate incarcerated (ranging from $15,000-$60,000, depending on the state). There are about 1.5 million federal and state prisoners. (I’m leaving out jail inmates for this discussion- it’s complicated enough, thank you).

The above figures would work out to a current state and federal prison budget being about $45 billion. However, a Center for Economic and Policy Research report (The High Budgetary Cost of Incarceration by John Schmitt, Kris Warner, and Sarika Gupta; June 2010) say it’s about $52 billion, so I’ll go with the higher figure.

Translating reductions in sentence length to reductions in overall prison population to reductions in prison budgets is not a straightforward process, so I’m again going to rely on the CEPR Report. According to this report, lengthy prison sentences are largely responsible for the currently high US incarceration rates and if incarceration rates went down to 1993 levels, there would be savings of almost a quarter of total correction budgets. That means about $12 billion in annual savings that could be used to pay for more police.

How many police would that pay for? About 200,000, increasing police numbers from 780,000 to 980,000.

A living wage is the hourly rate that an individual must earn to support their family, if they are the sole provider and are working full-time (2080 hours per year). As adopted in the US, living wages are often set so that a full-time worker with a family of four earns more than some measure of poverty (usually the official federal poverty line). According to MIT researchers, more than a third of American families are headed by individuals earning less than a living wage.

Support for the principle of a living wage seems to be gathering momentum. The City of Baltimore enacted the first living wage law in the US in 1994. Currently, more than 140 American cities have living wage laws. Bernie Sanders is firmly behind a living wage for the entire country, increasing the minimum wage to $15 an hour over the next few years, as recently done by the City of Los Angeles. Robert Reich is strongly in favor of a national living wage, arguing that any wage ought to be enough to “get Americans out of poverty and off government programs” and that we the taxpayer shouldn’t be subsidizing billion dollar corporations who refuse to pay decent wages. Reich further argues that a mandated living wage will reduce employee absenteeism and turnover, as well as improve worker morale and productivity, hence neutralizing or even reducing employer costs. Increased worker productivity and spending will then lead to economic growth and expanded job creation.

Opponents of a living wage argue that although a mandated living wage sounds great in principle, it can actually harm the very workers it seeks to help. Both economic theory and evidence suggest that living wage ordinances create distortions in the labor market that have a negative impact on employment. When governments mandate a wage above the prevailing market rate, a typical result is that fewer jobs and hours become available. One of the problems is that living wage ordinances often involve a large jump in the minimum wage, which has consequences that are different than incremental minimum wage increases. Also, employers of low-wage workers tend to have low profit margins and so have to cut costs or increase prices in order to afford the higher wages. In addition, employers respond to living wage laws by hiring more qualified workers at the expense of those with fewer skills in order to offset some of the higher wage costs. Living wages therefore reduce the opportunity for less-skilled workers to participate in the labor market. This is a highly perverse outcome since less-skilled workers are presumably among the very people the policy is intended help.

So what do you think? Would a living wage law be a net good, lifting millions out of poverty? Or might it have unintended consequences, ultimately hurting more people than it helps?

So I’ve shown that it’s relatively doable to provide a modest BIG that goes to about 72 million people who belong to households in the two bottom income quintiles. Now let me sing the praises of such a BIG.

My BIG won’t be so generous to incentivize long periods of unemployment. Plus, you can still work and receive a full BIG until your household hits $20,000 in annual income and a partial BIG until you hit $40,000. I imagine that the vast majority of BIG recipients will work at least part-time. BIG will work especially well with the “on-demand” economy, where people choose to work as they need to and when they want to.

But as young adults get older and start thinking about career advancement and earning enough for mortgages and nest eggs, they will be more than motivated than embrace the work ethic – which is pretty much how it is now.  A lot of teenagers and twenty-somethings already work only occasionally or part-time, often because their priorities are elsewhere (school, creative projects, fun, adventure). Eventually, they buckle down for a few decades to do what they must. This life trajectory isn’t likely to change with BIG. What will change, for the better, will be the standard of living for the young and minimally skilled.

Parents will be in a better position to take time off from work, or work just part-time, when their kids are really young. Not all parents would take advantage of this option but it’s still very nice to have, especially for young unskilled parents, where even one full-time employed partner may not earn enough to put the household above the bottom quintile.

A BIG could also strengthen committed relationships. Since poverty destabilizes relationships, the additional income could help poor couples stay together. Yes, there would be some disincentive to combine households through marriage (potentially pushing up household income to a disqualifying level) but most people by their 30s will earn too much to qualify for BIG anyway and at that point the marriage penalty disappears.

The BIG would also make it easier to leave dysfunctional relationships. Abused women in particular would have another source of income to help them move out and start over.

BIG would be great for students, who could still work part-time to help meet those steep tuition bills. (Note: Part-time employment is not a risk factor for dropping out of college).

And if you become suddenly unemployed, no need to apply for unemployment compensation, which BIG will replace. Sure, BIG isn’t as generous as unemployment and people who were high earners will receive a lot less than under the current system. But at least BIG is guaranteed and predictable.   And, again, there will be forms of means-tested assistance available, like food stamps.

Sure, some people will never get on the work wagon, or will only sporadically do so. Just like today. At least they will be guaranteed some income, without having to put on a show to prove they’re unable to work or are looking for work. And since their BIG won’t be jeopardized by occasional work (up to at least $20,000 a year per household), they will be less tempted to make a few extra bucks through the informal, untaxed economy (i.e., under the table or criminal) – but will take “real” jobs as they are able and so choose.

In the last post, I found $450 billion in the state and federal budgets to pay for a modest Basic Income Guarantee (BIG) benefit. Who would qualify to receive these funds?

BIG is usually conceived as a benefit that goes to all adults, with the hefty BIG bill paid through taxes on the affluent. But to balance the books, this would require those in higher income brackets to give any BIG they received back to the government in the form of taxes. This seems wasteful – why would the government give money to a group of taxpayers only to take back the entire amount from the same taxpayers?

At first I’d thought I’d address this problem by giving the BIG only to the poor and near-poor. But then it just becomes another means-tested program. Part of the attraction of BIG is that it doesn’t require jumping through bureaucratic hoops to receive. The check just comes. On a regular basis. No long lines and endless waiting.

Then again, the middle-class and affluent are not those a BIG is intended to help. The point of BIG is to provide a basic income for low-income people without making them sing and dance for it. No having to prove they are the truly deserving – that they’re unable to work or looking really hard for a job. The immediate benefits include the security of an income guarantee, less destitution, less being on the brink of destitution, less gaming of the system, lower administrative costs, and a smaller, less complicated bureaucracy. I’ll discuss other benefits later.

So it looks like a BIG would have to be sent to all adults not otherwise receiving a similar benefit, like Social Security,  government pensions, or Veterans disability benefits. Then a lot of the money sent out would be returned to the government in the form of taxes paid by the middle class and above.  Ideally, this can mostly be done electronically to reduce administrative costs.

As mentioned before, BIG would have to be designed in such a way that it would not create a huge disincentive to work. You don’t want to shrink the pool of tax payers, at least not by a lot. Ultimately, it would be the taxpayers who pay for BIG, not to mention all those other things governments do. And you don’t want the tax base too narrowly focused on the affluent, because the income of the rich is more volatile than that of other income classes. A stable BIG needs a stable source of funding, which means a pretty broad tax base. The 1% can’t pay for everything.

So BIG has to be generous enough to be meaningful but not so generous that a significant chunk of the population is tempted to sleep in and forget about the whole job thing. Where might that sweet spot be?

Let’s explore.

Who needs BIG the most? Poor or near-poor people, which I’ll define as qualifying adults in the bottom two household income quintiles. That would be about 72 million people. Although BIG would be sent to adults in all income quintiles, those in the top three quintiles would receive no net BIG after taxes, so in my calculations I will ignore them.

Here’s where the 72 million figure came from: there are about 24 million US households in each income quintile. Each household has an average of 1.5 adults, not counting adults who receive Social Security, public sector pensions or veterans’ benefits (who would not receive BIG). That adds up to about 36 million individuals per quintile, times 2 equals 72 million. Admittedly, the figuring is rough – but good enough for the purpose at hand.

The upper household income limit for the first quintile is about $20,000 a year. For the second quintile, it is about $40,000. What would be a reasonable amount of money to send to these folks? Enough to move them away from the brink of destitution but not so much to discourage work.

I’m thinking $700 a month ($8400/year) per qualifying adult. That’s enough to really help with core expenses but not enough to live on without working at least part-time (except, perhaps, for very frugal singles not living in San Francisco who don’t mind having a bunch of roommates – and more power to them). And remember: other means-tested benefits are still available, like food stamps, housing assistance, childcare assistance, and healthcare. So BIG will not be the only source of assistance with living expenses.

Unfortunately, given a $450 billion budget, a BIG of $700/month would pay for just 53 million people – fewer people than there are in the bottom two income quintiles. But that’s ok – because the BIG should get smaller as income increases, where it is more likely to be a wage supplement than the main source of income.

Adults in households belonging to the first quintile (maximum $20,000/year) are barely getting by. It would make sense for them to receive the full BIG allotment of $700/month. Second quintile adults living in households earning $20-$40,000 would taxed on the BIG, averaging $350/month in additional taxes (minimally taxed at the lower end of the income range and reaching $700/month in taxes at the top end). Combining the first and second quintiles, qualifying adults would receive, on average, a net BIG of $525 a month.

That would be 72 million people receiving a net BIG benefit  averaging $525 per month, costing the feds and state governments about $453 billion a year. Close enough to my budget of $450 billion to meet the doability test.

So it looks like there’s enough money to move around funds in the existing state/federal budgets to implement a modest BIG along the lines described. The incremental decreases of BIG within the 2^nd income quintile will be sufficiently small to be unlikely to disincentivize work or ambition.

Pretty good so far. Of course, things will go wrong. There will be unforeseen and unintended consequences. I imagine the BIG program will need to be tweaked a lot as it is rolled out. BIG legislation will need to include self-corrective mechanisms that are automatically triggered when problems arise, without requiring politicians to hazard the wrath of the voters, to keep the BIG within certain budget and policy parameters (e.g., if the economy tanks, or labor market participation drops precipitously). It won’t be perfect. It won’t eliminate all suffering. But it sure will be better than what we have now.