I'd love to see your thoughts about basic income.
http://bytemaster.bitshares.org/article/2015/01/26/The-basics-of-Basic-Income/
If you assume the Basic Income budget is set at a level that would replace existing spending on safety net programs then we could probably get everyone a $400 Basic Income.
Not sure how you calculated that. Looking at the
US spending budget for 2014, I calculate approximately $700 billion for OASI Benefits (old age social security), $140 billion for DI Benefits (disability insurance component of social security), $455 billion for Medicaid (healthcare subsidies for the poor which I assume basic income should make irrelevant; I will leave Medicare for seniors alone for now), and another $500 billion in other welfare (food stamps, earned income tax credits, child tax credits, unemployment insurance, housing subsidies, etc.). So that is approximately $1.8 trillion dollars in government spending on welfare that could instead be used for a basic income (I am assuming you keep taxes the same, meaning don't cut the payroll taxes even though social security and Medicaid would be gone).
If we decide to distribute this money equally to all adult US residents (let's not count children for now), then that means $1.8 trillion dollars needs to be divided equally to approximately
235 million people. This gives
$7660 per year, or approximately $636 per month (more than 50% higher than what you claimed). Still, it's not that great. It is only a little bit higher than half of minimum wage. And paying for it requires getting rid of the focused assistance that could potentially provide more bang for the buck. On the other hand, it does simplify things beautifully and it solves the welfare trap issue that you mentioned in the blog post.
What if we want to include children in the calculation as well? Well let's assume $280/month (the median child support payment that you claimed in the blog post) is allocated for each child (paid to the parents/legal guardians of course). There are
74 million children in the US, so the costs of the basic income for the children would be
$250 billion per year. This leaves $1.55 trillion dollars for the basic income for adults, or
$550/month. The typical family of four would receive 2x $280/month for the two kids, and 2x $550/month for the two parents, summing to a total of $1660/month for the household, or $19,920/year.
By the way, I don't think it is fair to say $1000/month basic income for each adult would provide a "middle class" lifestyle in the first world. The median household income is
$53,000 per year (median is what I would consider "middle class"). If you have two adults living together (typical household) their collective basic income would be $24,000 per year which is less than half of the median household income. Even if we only focus on states with lower costs of living, for example Mississippi with a median household income of approximately $39,000 per year, $1000/month would still not cut it. This isn't to say that I think the basic income
should cover what is today a median household income in the US, just that I wouldn't call it a "middle class" lifestyle.
Edit: I think I see how you can get the $400/month figure. If you keep social security as it is (old age and disability) as well as Medicare, and only get rid of Medicaid ($455 billion) and other welfare ($500 billion), then you have $955 billion per year to distribute to 195 million adults in the US between the ages of 18 and 64 (seniors aged 65 and above can rely on social security and Medicare as they do today). This gives a monthly basic income to the non-senior adults of
$407/month. If you want to include the $280/month basic income per child, then that leaves only
$300/month for each non-senior adults.