Milton Friedman was a big proponent of the negative income tax: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_income_tax https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_income

Milton Friedman was a big proponent of the negative income tax: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_income_tax https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_income_tax http://mitsloan.mit.edu/newsroom/articles/negative-income-tax-explained/ http://mitsloan.mit.edu/newsroom/articles/negative-income-ta... It has some very interesting properties when you combine it with a removal of the minimum wage, such as getting rid of the welfare trap and allowing jobs to stay on-shore that would have, otherwise, gone off-shore. You do have to be careful or you end up subsidizing low-wage employers in a wholesale manner, but I would argue that we're already doing that now, just in a more targeted manner. I'm sure that someone with more economic clout than myself could weigh in with some other possible issues that may arise. We have the EITC (Earned Income Tax Credit) in the US, but it suffers from not being universal and having too many conditions. Without those conditions, it would be pretty close to a UBI (Universal Basic Income). But, as Milton Friedman pointed out many times, you need to get rid of all of the other welfare programs in order to realize the efficiency gains and tax savings from any negative income tax scheme.