4 ms·

Why not do a progressive amount based on income (available from the IRS)? Those in higher income brackets would receive less, while those in lower income bracke

Why not do a progressive amount based on income (available from the IRS)? Those in higher income brackets would receive less, while those in lower income brackets would receive more.

ed312 7y ago
Because some people live in very high cost of living areas - high income alone is not sufficient. Ultimately if you don't hand out the benefit equally you're making some kind of value judgement: you ought to live this way, and not this way, to be worthy of support from the government. This is a _hard_ problem to even quantify. The real goal here is to keep the economic engine running (even on idle). Adding a political dimension will only slow down or block this, which will hurt everyone.
- wool_gather 7y ago
  > The real goal here is to keep the economic engine running I would say that the real goal is to keep people from suffering because they lack necessities, including housing. Granted that the economy is how we supply those things, so we need it to work, but I would say it is a close second priority-wise.
- mtberatwork 7y ago
  > Because some people live in very high cost of living areas - high income alone is not sufficient. No system will be perfect, but the government certainly can make adjustments based on dimensions like residence area. (They already do something similar with GS pay scales.) Similar income distribution programs exist in other Western countries (Kinder Geld in Germany comes to mind) so it's not like variations of this have never been successfully implemented before.
toast0 7y ago
At this point, you would have to use 2018 tax year info. 2019 tax filings aren't due for another month, and I think most people file in the week before the deadline. There's a lot that can happen to income levels in that time period.
AnthonyMouse 7y ago
There is a degree to which people who make more need more in cases like this, i.e. if one person makes $80,000 and another makes $40,000 and they both have their hours cut and lose half their income, the one who "makes more" just had their income reduced by a larger amount and is likely to have higher recurring expenses to carry. On the other hand, the person who had been making more has had more opportunity to save. So it goes both ways, and giving people the same amount of money is a middle ground that also has the advantage of being much administratively simpler.

Why not do a progressive amount based on income (available from the IRS)? Those in higher income brackets would receive less, while those in lower income brackets would receive more.

ed312 7y ago

Because some people live in very high cost of living areas - high income alone is not sufficient. Ultimately if you don't hand out the benefit equally you're making some kind of value judgement: you ought to live this way, and not this way, to be worthy of support from the government. This is a _hard_ problem to even quantify. The real goal here is to keep the economic engine running (even on idle). Adding a political dimension will only slow down or block this, which will hurt everyone.

wool_gather 7y ago
> The real goal here is to keep the economic engine running I would say that the real goal is to keep people from suffering because they lack necessities, including housing. Granted that the economy is how we supply those things, so we need it to work, but I would say it is a close second priority-wise.
mtberatwork 7y ago
> Because some people live in very high cost of living areas - high income alone is not sufficient. No system will be perfect, but the government certainly can make adjustments based on dimensions like residence area. (They already do something similar with GS pay scales.) Similar income distribution programs exist in other Western countries (Kinder Geld in Germany comes to mind) so it's not like variations of this have never been successfully implemented before.

toast0 7y ago

At this point, you would have to use 2018 tax year info. 2019 tax filings aren't due for another month, and I think most people file in the week before the deadline. There's a lot that can happen to income levels in that time period.

AnthonyMouse 7y ago

There is a degree to which people who make more need more in cases like this, i.e. if one person makes $80,000 and another makes $40,000 and they both have their hours cut and lose half their income, the one who "makes more" just had their income reduced by a larger amount and is likely to have higher recurring expenses to carry. On the other hand, the person who had been making more has had more opportunity to save. So it goes both ways, and giving people the same amount of money is a middle ground that also has the advantage of being much administratively simpler.