UBI Calculator

How much universal basic income could new taxes above today’s rates fund? The app starts on a mildly progressive package (~$285/month per adult); drag a slider to tune the mix, or use the master slider below the donut to scale all of them at once. “Defaults” returns to today’s rates — a $0 baseline.

Set the rates

UBI funding potential

$285

per adult / month

The numbers

New revenue pool —

Per adult / year —

Per adult / month —

Per week —

Static scoring: assumes people & corporations do not change behavior. Sliders start on a mildly progressive package above today’s rates, and the headline pool is the new revenue those increases raise over current law; toggle to “All collected” to include what the tax code already brings in. “Defaults” resets the sliders to today’s rates for a $0 baseline. Income pools for the top 1% / 0.1% exclude realized capital gains so the capital-gains slider doesn’t double-count. All figures are rounded estimates.

Bases, assumptions & sources

Revenue source	Rate	2025 tax base	New revenue	Primary source / method

Methodology: revenue = rate × base for each source (static scoring, no behavioral response). The default view counts only revenue above today’s rates (the 21% corporate rate, ~26–27% top-1% bracket, 20% long-term capital-gains rate, 40% estate rate, and zero wealth/FTT); the “All collected” view adds what the current code already raises. The overall-tax-level slider multiplies every slider at once (100% = each slider’s own rate, 200% doubles all, rates cap at 100%). The corporate base ($3.1 T) is CBO’s implied effective taxable-profits base for FY2025 (≈$650B receipts at the 21% rate), smaller than BEA’s ~$3.5 T domestic pre-tax profits because of credits and deductions. Top-1% / 0.1% bases are that group’s income above its cutoff, scaled from IRS SOI Tax Year 2023 to 2025 and stripped of realized capital gains to avoid double-counting with the capital-gains slider. The wealth-tax base ($50 T) is US household net worth above a ~$50M exemption — the top ~0.1% of households — per the Fed’s Z.1/SCF. UBI denominator: 269M US adults 18+ (Census Bureau Vintage 2024 estimates).