This page contains a calculator which can be used to design a guaranteed basic income (another word for “basic income guarantee” or “negative income tax”) in the United States, using hard Census data and spending data from the Congressional Budget Office. In its basic form, the tool only requires two inputs to calculate the costs of various forms of a guaranteed basic income: (1) the size of guaranteed basic income (in dollars) for every American over the age of 18 years old and (2) an effective tax rate to limit those benefits as income is earned.
In its advanced form, the tool allows readers to pick and choose from line items in the CBO’s 2014 Fiscal Outlook. It automatically tallies that spending and compares proposed levels to the cost of the currently active programs in the United States. The homepage includes an extensive discussion of how it works and the methodology used to create it.
The calculator’s home page is: https://dqydj.net/a-guaranteed-basic-income-cost-calculator-solving-poverty-in-america/.
A link directly to the calculator is: https://dqydj.net/scripts/fullhtml/2013negativeincometax.html.
A picture of the BIG calculator / financial soundness checker.
