What would a basic income cost in the United States?
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Total cost per year
4.17 trillion US dollars
347 million people × $1,000 a month × 12 months
Compared with
- Government expense (central) (2023)55.4%
- Government revenue (central, excl. grants) (2024)76.2%
- Tax revenue (central government) (2024)126%
- GDP (nominal) (2025)13.5%
The United States in numbers
The United States has a population of 347 million (2025) and a GDP of 30.8 trillion US dollars in 2025.
Paying everyone $1,000 a month would cost 4.17 trillion US dollars a year, or 13.5% of GDP. That equals 55.4% of central government expense (2023), 76.2% of its revenue (2024), and 126% of its tax revenue (2024).
Children only (under 18: 72.9 million) would cost 875 billion US dollars a year (2.8% of GDP); adults only (18 and over: 274 million), 3.29 trillion US dollars (10.7%).
Default amount: $1,000 a month is a round figure chosen by the editors for this calculator. For comparison, the World Bank's poverty line of $3.00 a day is about $91 a month here; paying that to everyone would cost 1.2% of GDP.
Essays on this country
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- Has generative AI taken our jobs? The data, and what basic income can do (Part 1)
- Refundable tax credits vs basic income: what Japan’s new payment for workers is, and is not
- What happened when Sam Altman’s study gave people $1,000 a month for three years
- NESARA/GESARA and basic income: telling real payments to everyone from promises that never arrive
- Universal high income: who pays?
How to read this
This is the gross cost: the total paid out. The real net cost depends on which taxes fund it, which benefits or tax breaks it replaces and whether the payment is taxed. The population, budget and GDP figures are not all from the same year (see the sources).
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Sources for the figures
- GDP
- World Bank, World Development Indicators: GDP in current local currency units (NY.GDP.MKTP.CN), 2025. Updated 8 Oct 2026. India and Egypt report on a fiscal-year basis
- World Bank: GDP in current local currency (NY.GDP.MKTP.CN) and in current US dollars (NY.GDP.MKTP.CD), 2025
- Government expense and tax revenue
- World Bank: central government expense, revenue excluding grants and tax revenue, % of GDP (GC.XPN.TOTL.GD.ZS, GC.REV.XGRT.GD.ZS, GC.TAX.TOTL.GD.ZS), 2023, 2024
- Default amount
- World Bank: international poverty line of $3.00 a day (2021 PPP), June 2025 update
- World Bank: PPP conversion factor, household final consumption (PA.NUS.PRVT.PP), 2025
- Retrieved from the World Bank API on November 9, 2026 (CC BY 4.0). Government figures are central government, as a share of GDP in their own year, applied to the latest GDP.