Critics of basic income are as varied as its supporters, and their objections fall into a few families: cost, fairness, targeting and political risk. Many of them share the goal of ending poverty but doubt this is the way to reach it.
The arithmetic
Start with a rough sum. Paying 12,000 dollars a year to each of the roughly 260 million adults in the United States would cost about 3.1 trillion dollars, close to half of all federal spending. That is the gross cost. Supporters reply that the net cost of a basic income is the gross cost minus what is recovered from better-off people through taxes, and it can be a fraction of the headline number, since comfortable households would pay back their payment and more. Critics answer that the tax rates needed would still be very high, and that higher marginal rates on the middle class could reduce work and investment. Either way, a generous basic income means moving a large share of national income through the tax system, and any honest proposal must say who pays.
Reciprocity
The deepest objection is moral. Many people feel that those who can contribute should, and that it is unfair for some to live off the work of others. The philosopher John Rawls, replying to the surfer argument, wrote in 1988 that people who spent their days surfing off Malibu should support themselves and had no claim on public funds. The reciprocity objection holds that able people who receive social support owe some contribution in return. The British political theorist Stuart White, in The Civic Minimum (2003), defended a reciprocity principle while insisting that care work and other unpaid contributions should count. The norm is not only a philosophers' view: surveys in many countries find that most people support help for those who cannot work but object to unconditional payments to those who choose not to.
Work and dependence
A related worry is practical. If people need not work, some will work less, and the loss of work may cost them more than money: the structure, company and sense of purpose that a job often provides. Critics also fear an economy split between taxpaying workers and a population living on payments, with resentment growing on both sides. The evidence on work, covered in the next two levels, is more reassuring than many critics expected, but most trials were too small and short to test effects on culture over a generation.
Targeting
Another objection comes from people who share the goal of helping the poor. Critics of universality argue that the same money would do more for the poor if it were targeted at those in need. Every dollar paid to a comfortable household is a dollar not spent on a disabled person whose costs are high or a family facing eviction. A basic income that replaced targeted programs could leave some of the neediest worse off, since a flat payment ignores differences in need. Supporters respond that targeting has costs of its own, as the last level showed.
Rents and borders
Economists also ask where the money ends up. The rent capture worry is that landlords would raise rents and absorb much of the payment wherever housing is scarce and new building is blocked. Others ask who would count as a member: a generous national payment could create pressure to limit immigration or delay newcomers' eligibility, raising hard questions about who belongs.
A trojan horse?
Some on the left fear that a basic income could be used to dismantle the welfare state. In In Our Hands (2006), the American scholar Charles Murray proposed replacing Social Security, Medicare, welfare and other transfers with a single grant of 10,000 dollars a year to every adult. Murray argued this would cut bureaucracy and restore personal responsibility. Critics on the left saw exactly what they feared: a payment used to end public health insurance and pensions. The design matters as much as the label.
The voters' verdict so far
The only national referendum on the idea was held in Switzerland on 5 June 2016. The proposal did not name an amount, though campaigners suggested 2,500 Swiss francs a month for each adult. Swiss voters rejected the proposal by about 77 percent to 23 percent, with every canton voting no. Opponents, including the government, warned of cost and of migration; supporters said they had at least forced a public debate.
Worked example: one budget, two plans
A small country has 10 billion to spend on cash support for its 5 million adults. Plan A pays each adult 2,000 a year. Plan B pays 10,000 a year to the poorest million, phasing out as they earn more.
A defender of targeting points out that Plan B gives the poor five times as much. A defender of universality replies that Plan B will miss eligible people through non-take-up, create a poverty trap where it phases out, and stigmatize recipients. A reciprocity critic objects to both unless able recipients contribute in some way. Which plan is better depends partly on how large the hidden costs of targeting really are, which is an empirical question, and partly on which moral principle a voter weighs most, which is not.