Some interesting numbers:

  * The US Population is 320 million [http://www.indexmundi.com/united_states/demographics_profile.html].   
  * Our federal budget is $3.9 trillion [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_federal_budget#Total_outlays_in_recent_budget_submissions].   * If every dollar of the budget went towards BI (no defense spending, no infrastructure, etc), that would be $12,260 / person / year. 
  * If you limit it to adults, it ends up around $15,000 / person / year (about 80% of the US population is 15 years or older [http://www.indexmundi.com/united_states/demographics_profile.html]).

This actually lines up pretty closely to the official poverty rate [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_in_the_United_States#R...]. It equals an hourly wage of about $6 / hour.

I wonder if there were a BI, if those at or near the poverty line would tend to get more efficient with their spending. For example, moving towards lower cost parts of the country.