Es ist Zeit, das bedingungslose Grundeinkommen zu überdenken

Cost of living being extremely high is not gonna be solved by any amount of money the government could possibly hand out

I just don’t get the math when I work it out.

https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/tv.action?pid=1710000501

Assuming we are paying it to anyone 18+, but lets go with 20+ because that’s how the population estimates break it down.

The July 1, 2025 population estimate for those 20+ is 33,071,098.

If we paid everyone $30,000 a year, which you can’t really live on it’s $992,132,940,000. Nearly $1 trillion.

If we were more generous and gave everyone $50,000 a year, which is still not a lot to survive on it’s a staggering $1,653,554,900,000. Just over $1.6 trillion dollars.

Total expenditures for 2025-26 for the federal government is only a measly $585.9 billion. Someone can correct me on this figure if it’s wrong.

I know people often will respond, just tax large businesses and rich people more. But I still don’t get how the math works out. You’ll still need to provide services to people, like we do now with helping with disability supports, mental health, addiction issues, job boards and helping you with your resume.

I am not against providing more services and help for low income people, but I just don’t see how we can easily simplify it down to just sending everyone a cheque in the mail and cut all support services.

My preferred version would be a high end Negative Income Tax as a replacement of various other programs.

Basically how an NIT style system would work is that income tax and the benefit would be integrated into single system. For people of working age and over there’d be an income threshold of around $58,000 CAD in 2019/2020 dollars ($70,000/71,500 in 2026) with a flat tax benefit/rate of 50%. Anyone below the threshold would pay no tax and receive a monthly benefit (the equation pretty much being the full value of the subsidy minus the value of 50% of their income), while those who earned above it would pay tax based on the same equation without getting a subsidy (basically an inverse version). The exemption basically makes the flat tax progressive, but fairly easily to administer since the equation is essentially identical for all recipients, but the exemption makes the tax/benefit rate progressive as you slide up/down the income ladder . The effective rate would look something like this: (figures below in 2019/2020 dollars)

* Someone who earns $0 annually receives $29,000 in benefits and pays no tax
* Someone who earns $35,000 would receive $11,500 and pay no tax
* Someone who earns $40,000 would receive $9,000 and pay no tax
* Someone who earns $50,000 would receive $4,000 and pay no tax
* Someone who earns $55,000 would receive $1,500 and pay no tax
* Someone who just hits the $58,000 threshold or is slightly below it would receive no money from the government and pay no tax. (0%)
* Someone who earns $65,000 pays $3,500 in tax (5.38%)
* Someone who earns $70,000 pays $6,000 (8.57%)
* Someone who earns $80,000 pays $11,000 (13.75%)
* Someone who earns $90,000 pays $16,000 (17.7%)
* Someone who earns $100,000 pays $21,000 (21%)
* Someone who earns $120,000 pays $31,000 (25.8%)

For the Canadian system, you’d probably have to cap the flat effective top rate for income at 21-27% for people earning above $100,000-130,000 to account for provincial income tax so that the top rates would be about what they are currently (or capped to be slightly above etc.). Though in any case, this system would ensure more security for low and middle income individuals and households, reduce inequality, increase social mobility and simplify a good portion of federal beaurcocracy etc.

If someone was unemployed or lost their job, all they’d need to to do is refile and they’d instantly/near instantly get their benefits while everyone working would just get taxes deducted from their income tax similar to current income tax/CPP payments.