(This is an excerpt from my article titled "How We Can Transform America’s Broken Economic System to Work for EVERYONE". You can read it in full on Medium.
Per citizen calculations are based on 92.8% of the US population being legal citizens.)
The following is a short list of our shared expenditures as a society. On the left is the total cost and on the right is the cost per American citizen.
We spend $2.7 trillion for health care — $9,090 per citizen per year
We spend over $1.4 trillion on crime — $4,713 per citizen per year
We spend $1.3 trillion on Social Security — $4,376 per citizen per year
We spend $1.2 trillion on education — $4,040 per citizen per year
We spend $840 billion on our military — $2,828 per citizen per year
We spend $544 billion on the “empty labor” of workers not actually working while at work — $1,831 per citizen per year
We spend $500 billion on welfare — $1,683 per citizen per year
We’ve spent $260 billion each year since 2001 to wage a “War on Terror” in a way that has increased terrorism — $875 per citizen per year
We spend $200 billion on work presenteeism (people going to work when they shouldn't, like when they're sick, because they feel they have to) — $673 per citizen per year
We waste $180 billion on unpurchased food — $606 per citizen per year
We lose $160 billion by not using our vacation days — $539 per citizen per year
We spend $110 billion on federal corporate subsidies — $370 per citizen per year
We spend $108 billion on the cost of hunger — $364 per citizen per year
We spend at least $100 billion on a patent system that decreases innovation — $337 per citizen per year
We spend $100 billion buying illegal drugs — $337 per citizen per year
We spend $51 billion fighting the buying of illegal drugs — $172 per citizen per year
We spend $92 billion on gambling — $310 per citizen per year
We lose $90 billion commuting to and from work — $303 per citizen per year
We spend $70 billion on the mortgage interest deduction — $236 per citizen per year
We lose $70 billion by not legalizing and taxing marijuana like we do alcohol — $236 per citizen per year
We are spending $1.5 trillion over 30 years for the F-35 — $168 per citizen per year
We actually subtract $53 billion from the economy by using coal power — $178 per citizen per year
We lose $40 billion to suicides (40,000 x $1 million each but the true cost is incalculable) — $135 per citizen per year
We spend $8 billion the Pentagon can’t account for — $27 per citizen per year
We spent about $4 billion in 2014 on our midterm elections — $13 per citizen per year
We spend $2.3 billion in volunteering over 100 million hours of our time at food banks to feed those of whom a majority have jobs but aren’t paid enough to not need food banks — $8 per citizen per year
We spend $40-50 billion on financial fraud — $151 avg per citizen per year
We lose $203 billion on occupational licensing restrictions — $683 per citizen per year
We gave away $130 billion in natural resources to a foreign mining company in 2014 — $438 per citizen
We spend $229 billion on the costs of gun violence — $770 per citizen per year
We spend $71 to $277 billion on the costs of air pollution — $586 avg per citizen per year
We spend over $100 billion on state and federal disaster relief payouts — $337 per citizen per year
We spend $80 billion on state, county, and city subsidies to corporations — $269 per citizen per year
We give $83 billion in interest rate subsidies to the largest banks — $269 per citizen per year
We spend $270 billion more than we need to on the cost of medications — $909 per citizen per year
We give $181 billion to all businesses in the form of special exemptions and exclusions, credits, deductions, deferrals, and preferential tax rates — $609 per citizen per year
We lose $142 billion to corporate tax havens — $478 per citizen per year
We lose $885 billion in lost GDP (5%) due to not paying women the same as men — $2,979 per citizen per year
As a society, we are now spending or throwing away about $11.9 trillion dollars or $40,000 per citizen every year
There exists overlap between some expenditures, and many of these can't be reduced to zero, but the above also represents only a partial list of all expenditures.
This is what we're seemingly entirely okay right now spending or wasting our money on. Somehow, we just don't have a problem with this much money being spent or lost as a society. It's just "the way things are."
To understand how we can reduce these expenditures and losses by more than $12,000 per citizen by spending an additional $12,000 per citizen on basic income, next read "How We Can Transform America’s Broken Economic System to Work for EVERYONE"