4 ms·

I don't know if the drop off of assistance can really work that well. Say UBI is 10000 fun-bucks. A person gets a crappy job that pays 5000 fun-bucks. Their tot

I don't know if the drop off of assistance can really work that well. Say UBI is 10000 fun-bucks. A person gets a crappy job that pays 5000 fun-bucks. Their total income is now 5000+(10000-5000*.5)=12500. By getting a job and working, they've only improved their situation by 2500. Any dollar they earn above the UBI is taxed at 50%, until they've "made it" to double UBI. This amounts to taxing the poor instead of the rich, and is likely to not incentivize work as much you might like. Most proposals for UBI I've seen are truly universal, meaning that rich and poor alike are entitled to it.

leetcrew 6y ago
> This amounts to taxing the poor instead of the rich not really, when you consider who must be paying for the original 10000 fun bucks. the person in your example is still achieving an effectively negative tax rate. > and is likely to not incentivize work as much you might like. this much I agree with. the 50% falloff is probably much too steep.
thomastjeffery 6y ago
When someone has enough to meet their basic needs, $2,500 can go a long way. Over the last year, Americans have gotten about that much in "stimulus", but many of us had to spend it all on rent and other bills.
kbelder 6y ago
It also breaks down when there are multiple overlapping programs, as there are now. Maybe each program drops $0.25 for every dollar earned... but if you are on four or more means-tested programs, that's completely removed the benefit. Similar are the many programs that have cutoff at, say, 150% poverty level. Individually not a big deal, but when you lose a multitude of different benefits going from 25k to 35k income, it can be a perverse incentive.
lostcolony 6y ago
Yep. UBI -is- meant to be universal, and I'd be for it. I'm just saying, even without a UBI, the existing system could be made to work. 50% is just a number thrown out there; it can be reduced, it can be non-linear. The point is that as long as there is no cliff, no point where if you make $1 extra by working you net -lose- money, we avoid the existing issue. As to whether there is enough utility at any given total income to warrant the extra work...that's a 'problem' we have now, and always will have. Presented with the opportunity, do I want to turn my time into money? That's entirely dependent on how much I value each of those things. There's actually a reason I chose 50%, beyond it just being a nice round number. See, if the federal minimum wage was upped to $15 at the same time as changing welfare like this, we'd be able to institute the fall off while making the benefit of working those hours feel like the same amount of buying power as working now. Only difference is, essentially, that everyone making less than 2x welfare/etc benefits, would see a larger increase even than that.

leetcrew 6y ago

> This amounts to taxing the poor instead of the rich not really, when you consider who must be paying for the original 10000 fun bucks. the person in your example is still achieving an effectively negative tax rate. > and is likely to not incentivize work as much you might like. this much I agree with. the 50% falloff is probably much too steep.

thomastjeffery 6y ago

When someone has enough to meet their basic needs, $2,500 can go a long way. Over the last year, Americans have gotten about that much in "stimulus", but many of us had to spend it all on rent and other bills.

kbelder 6y ago

It also breaks down when there are multiple overlapping programs, as there are now. Maybe each program drops $0.25 for every dollar earned... but if you are on four or more means-tested programs, that's completely removed the benefit. Similar are the many programs that have cutoff at, say, 150% poverty level. Individually not a big deal, but when you lose a multitude of different benefits going from 25k to 35k income, it can be a perverse incentive.

lostcolony 6y ago

Yep. UBI -is- meant to be universal, and I'd be for it. I'm just saying, even without a UBI, the existing system could be made to work. 50% is just a number thrown out there; it can be reduced, it can be non-linear. The point is that as long as there is no cliff, no point where if you make $1 extra by working you net -lose- money, we avoid the existing issue. As to whether there is enough utility at any given total income to warrant the extra work...that's a 'problem' we have now, and always will have. Presented with the opportunity, do I want to turn my time into money? That's entirely dependent on how much I value each of those things. There's actually a reason I chose 50%, beyond it just being a nice round number. See, if the federal minimum wage was upped to $15 at the same time as changing welfare like this, we'd be able to institute the fall off while making the benefit of working those hours feel like the same amount of buying power as working now. Only difference is, essentially, that everyone making less than 2x welfare/etc benefits, would see a larger increase even than that.