The Deal
Every adult gets a guaranteed income — every month, no strings attached.
- A starting amount of $4,000/month ($48,000/year), untaxed — adjusted each year as prices rise. This is a starting point for discussion, and inflation may already make it too low.
- Universal healthcare included — no premiums, copays, or deductibles
- 50% flat tax on all additional income (wages, investment income, everything) — no deductions, no loopholes
- Voluntary opt-in — age 18+, one-year trial period, permanent after commitment
All programs that require you to prove you're poor enough to qualify are replaced: Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, SNAP, unemployment insurance, housing assistance. Not because they failed at their mission — because one program can do what fifteen programs do, without the $270-370 billion a year we currently spend on the bureaucracy that decides who’s “deserving.” Universal means no more “why does he get it but I don’t.” It ends the deserving/undeserving divide. No more bickering about who qualifies.
We’ve Done This Before
The GI Bill was designed as a bribe. Congress was terrified of a second Bonus Army — a million angry veterans marching on Washington like they did in 1932. So they wrote a check: education, housing, business loans, healthcare. Binary qualification — served means qualified. No gatekeeping, no means test. The government writes the check and gets out of the way. The recipient decides how to use it.
It accidentally became the greatest investment in the American people in our country’s history. Every dollar returned seven in economic growth. It built the middle class. It still stands 80 years later.
I used the GI Bill. It paid for my master’s in education — which made me a teacher, a curriculum designer, and gave me insights I use to this day. I’m not borrowing someone else’s story — I lived it.
The GI Bill was the best investment this country ever made. It was designed as a bribe and turned into a miracle. All I’m saying is: let’s do it on purpose this time. For all of us.
We all serve. We just don’t call it service because there’s no uniform. The teacher, the caregiver, the nurse, the single parent working two jobs, the volunteer who keeps the food bank open — they serve. The Floor says we recognize that.
We’ve All Felt It
During COVID, stimulus checks gave people something they hadn’t had in years: breathing room. Bills got paid. Small businesses held on another month. People remembered what it felt like to not be afraid of the next envelope in the mail.
Then it stopped. Like the patients in the movie Awakenings — they came alive, and then went back under. That’s what 2008 did to the bottom rung of the economy. That’s what post-COVID did again. The floor appeared, people breathed, and then it was pulled out from under them.
I’m not arguing about left or right. I’m proposing a floor that provides a foundation for all of us.
Both sides felt the stimulus. Both sides remember breathing. Both sides lost it. The only question that matters now is whether we build something permanent or keep waiting for the next crisis to hand us a temporary one.
The Math
Someone earning $40,000/year
- Earning $40,000 in wages
- 50% tax on wages = $20,000 take-home from work
- Plus UBI: $48,000
- Total income: $68,000 — with healthcare included
A couple, both working
- Combined UBI: $96,000/year
- Healthcare: covered for both
- Any additional work income: taxed at 50%, kept at 50%
A couple testing the water
One spouse keeps working and stays on the current system. The other opts into UBI. The combined household income depends on what the working spouse earns — it could be more or less than $96,000. They could cut back hours, find more meaningful work, feel less stress. A natural transition where one person tests the water first. It’s a learning experience for the couple AND for others watching how it works out. Real-world proof of concept.
Most working Americans come out ahead — even after the 50% rate. Until income reaches around $100,000, the math favors the floor over the current system. Above that, take-home pay grows more slowly as income goes up from jobs, investments, and business — but there’s peace of mind. It’s like an insurance policy, except it pays out before the disaster, not after.
What People Actually Do with a Floor
Some will:
- Take a break they desperately need
- Leave a job that’s killing them
- Finally start what they’ve been putting off
Most will:
- Do what they already do — with more dignity
- Have breathing room and less fear
- Contribute more, not less
Some will travel — see the country. Sometimes you have to leave to find out you belong here. And if you do find greener grass, it’s easier to start over.
Every dollar earned stays at half. Always. Right now, the way most aid programs work, earning one dollar too much means you lose your food assistance, your healthcare, your housing voucher — the whole thing, all at once. The floor has no cliff like that. Work more, keep more. That changes everything.
The system sorts itself. Someone thinks they can do better without UBI, pays lower taxes. Then their business fails, they get laid off, they find themselves caring for a loved one full-time, they burn out but the only leave of absence is unpaid — forced to stay in a job where getting out of bed becomes the hardest thing they do all day. With UBI, they can opt back in. No shame, no application, no proving they’re desperate enough. Most people will join when they’re down, not when they’re up.
All these safety programs we currently have are actually a version of UBI — we just don’t call it that, and it’s deeply unfair because of the process that determines who gets it and who’s left out. And it traps people from getting ahead because the moment they do, they lose it. So the argument that “nobody will work with UBI” — look at people on current programs who are doing work on the side, getting paid under the table, because the system punishes them for earning openly. With UBI, everything is out in the open.
Why Voluntary?
Why not just move everyone over? Because forcing 330 million people into a new system overnight is how you create backlash and break trust. Voluntary means people choose it because it works for them — not because someone in Washington decided for them.
High earners stay in the traditional system — they’re already winning under current rules. Working poor, caregivers, artists, small business owners, retirees choose UBI for the security. Entrepreneurs take risks knowing they have a fallback.
The one-year trial lets people test it without commitment. After one year: commit permanently or return to the traditional system. Once committed, it’s for life. A real choice with real information.
The system sorts itself. Nobody has to win an argument about whether universal income is a good idea. People try it, and the ones it works for stay. The ones it doesn’t, don’t.
Killing the Overhead
The current safety net runs through 15+ programs across 8 federal agencies, each with separate eligibility rules, databases, and processes. The total system overhead: $270-370 billion per year.
- $100-150 billion in direct agency administration (federal + state combined)
- $248 billion in excess healthcare billing and insurance overhead
- $70+ billion in unclaimed benefits — people who qualify but can’t navigate the system
- 11.5 billion person-hours of paperwork annually for benefits eligibility
Means-testing IS the overhead. The entire administrative apparatus exists primarily to determine who is “deserving.” Programs with universal eligibility — Social Security, Medicare Part A — have the lowest admin costs. One universal program replaces all of it.
And as more people opt in, the overhead shrinks further. Some departments may cease to exist entirely. That is the ultimate small government play — not cutting services, but eliminating the bureaucracy that stands between people and the services they need. Is that not the goal?
What UBI Actually Secures
Economist Richard Murphy identifies five things that genuinely matter in a human life — and notes that wealth alone delivers none of them:
- Security — reliably meeting basic needs. The floor provides a guaranteed monthly income with no gaps, no cliffs, no applications.
- Purpose — meaningful work or activity. When survival isn’t the job, people choose work that matters to them.
- Relationships — strong human connections. Time to be present for kids, aging parents, neighbors, community.
- Contribution — making a difference in others’ lives. Local spending circulates. Every dollar becomes someone else’s opportunity.
- Autonomy — freedom to shape our own lives. Voluntary opt-in. No bureaucrat decides what we need. We do.
I did not have a UBI, but I always lived within my means — so in a way, I created one for myself. It allowed me to leave teaching to become a full-time caregiver for my mom, and it allowed me to start a new business that employed 25 people.
Most new businesses are started by people between 55 and 65 — people who finally have enough money to take a risk. What if they had that runway at 25?
Questions
Isn’t 50% too high? Won’t people stop working? What about fraud? I’ve thought about all of it — and I didn’t come up with this concept yesterday.