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This might be solved by a Negative Income Tax [1]: > In economics, a negative income tax (NIT) is a system which reverses the direction in which tax is paid fo

This might be solved by a Negative Income Tax [1]: > In economics, a negative income tax (NIT) is a system which reverses the direction in which tax is paid for incomes below a certain level; in other words, earners above that level pay money to the state while earners below it receive money. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_income_tax https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_income_tax Edit: I'm not economically literate enough to say I fully support this, but the idea is appealing

wonderwonder 5y ago
So we are going to raise taxes on the middle class to give free money to people that choose not to work? Every single family would then do a calculation to see if its worth the second earner working or if they make more just staying home and getting a UBI. I would not be ok going to work to pay people that have decided that they are fine living on the UBI and don't want to work anymore. Seems like a pretty antagonistic solution to the problem.
- dopidopHN 5y ago
  You could also state : lower class people who choose to do work would be catapulted to another revenue level.
- ac29 5y ago
  Any credible UBI proposal always involves raising taxes to support payments to everyone. Usually the marketing pitch is that it will be a wash for the middle class (tax increases ~= UBI payouts). But of course "middle class" is poorly defined and spans a wide range of incomes that aren't taxed the same. Presumably a middle class family in San Jose would have a much different calculation than a similar family in Des Moines.
- totony 5y ago
  >So we are going to raise taxes on the middle class to give free money to people that choose not to work? 1. UBI aims to streamline redistribution of wealth and remove a lot of bureaucracy around it, reducing a lot of the cost of the current system 2. Why the middle class specifically? Upper class could shoulder most of the costs (if there are) easily >I would not be ok going to work to pay people that have decided that they are fine living on the UBI and don't want to work anymore. Then don't work. We already have taxes for things which are way less useful for society. You could choose not to work and live on with the bare minimum. That's the freedom UBI brings. Now probably you'd do something or another out of boredom which would end up being useful to society anyway. You'd just do it for free instead of having to convince someone to pay for it. EDIT: A better way to put it is to see UBI as an investment into people instead of as a cost. You give them what they need to live so that, in aggregate, they can innovate more and worry less about making ends meet. Notwithstanding the fact that this is something we can do, for somewhat cheap and would help a lot of people.
  - nradov 5y ago
    Have you actually done the math? The reality is that there aren't enough upper class people to generate sufficient tax revenue for a meaningful UBI. While I do support higher taxes at the upper levels, you can only squeeze people so much before they decide to bail out and move to tax havens.
    - totony 5y ago
      >The reality is that there aren't enough upper class people to generate sufficient tax revenue for a meaningful UBI. What makes you think so? There are a lot of discussion online about the costs/benefits of UBI. This article has an US-centric view on how this could be afforded https://www.cnbc.com/2020/01/14/budget-neutral-universal-basic-income-plan-would-pay-1320-per-month.html https://www.cnbc.com/2020/01/14/budget-neutral-universal-bas...
      - giantg2 5y ago
        Interesting. Sounds like it axes Medicare, SS, and a large number of tax deductions (which is how the US implements a lot of policy). I'd love a simplified tax code, but unsure of the SS and Medicare removal. I wonder how that would look for people who are currently collecting, paying in at various stages, etc. That would be a massive windfall for most if the money paid-in was returned. I'm not sure which veteran benefits they want to get rid of specifically, but this could be a bad idea. One of the main ways to increase economic class if one is poor is to serve in the military and have the pay for college after they get out (yes, the payment could cover part of it, assuming they aren't using it for living expenses which would be mostly covered during their enlistment). The VA is under funded and doesn't have a great record, but that's so highly beneficial to many.
        nybble41 5y ago
        > Sounds like it axes Medicare, SS, and a large number of tax deductions… … as well various special-purpose programs including housing benefits, SSI, SNAP, TANF, veteran's benefits, WIC, Medicaid, SS Disability, and disaster relief. I'm sure those currently receiving these benefits will be thrilled to find out that they're being replaced by a flat UBI payment of $15k/yr (minus taxes) with no allowance for special circumstances or hardship. > [SS and Medicare removal] would be a massive windfall for most if the money paid-in was returned. Undoubtedly, but what are the odds of that happening?
- quirino 5y ago
  Taxes wouldn't necessarily be raised. The idea would be to replace many (possibly all) of the usual government social services by these payments. You already pay taxes, and they are already used to fund other people. The idea would be to allow people to choose individually how to spend this money. The goal is efficiency, fair distribution of benefits and elimination of bureaucracy and administrative overhead.
  - thecolorblew 5y ago
    Well, you'd still need the usual government social services though in order to protect those who might still be homeless or hungry even with the UBI.
- dragonwriter 5y ago
  > So we are going to raise taxes on the middle class to give free money to people that choose not to work? No, ideally, we would raise taxes on the upper class, to give money (compared to the status quo system where we already have means-tested poverty support aid) to the people choosing to do more work (since means-tested aid gets cut with additional income, but UBI doesn't, except by the effects of progressive taxation.) One way to do part of this: * Roll payroll taxes into progressive income tax (including basing eligibility for payroll-tax funded programs on total income, not just income currently subject to payroll taxes.) For Social Security, this may involve adding one or more additional “bend points” to the benefit formula. * Eliminate favorable rates for long-term capital gains, taxing them at normal income tax rates; to better target fairness for gains that genuinely require an extended period and which would be overtaxed if treated as income in the year of realization, allow freely recognizing income (not just capital income) for tax purposes in advance of realization, and additionally allow deferral of some portion of windfall (based on recent past years as baseline) gains over a period of several years.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- zozbot234 5y ago
  That "free money" is just enough to subsist on and pull themselves up by their own bootstraps. Instead of "choosing not to work", think of it as "seeking work that's a good fit for them". The incentives are set up so that entering the labor market and improving their earnings makes them better off - which, incredibly enough, most poverty alleviation programs (which are a non-trivial chunk of all government spending) utterly fail at. > see if its worth the second earner working or if they make more just staying home The available experimental outcomes show that by and large, people that stay at home on a properly-designed UBI are those who can thereby make highly-valued contributions to the household, such as by raising young kids. Otherwise, they choose to work just as much.
- Shorel 5y ago
  It seems to be what is happening in Argentina.
Cthulhu_ 5y ago
A system like this exists in many countries already, except it's framed differently; in my own country, if you're below a certain income level, you are entitled to stipends to help pay for rent, health insurance, child (day) care and probably some other things. It's a socialist support system, and it's framed in a way that doesn't make 'the rich' feel like they are paying 'the poor'. Of course, there's a huge administrative overhead involved as well, plus there's a big case going on now of people falsely being accused of defrauding the system because some department got rewarded for finding fraudsters, or whatever the issue was. It financially ruined many people because they went from getting a bit of money to help make ends meet, to getting charged €30,000 or more in back pay and fines.

wonderwonder 5y ago

So we are going to raise taxes on the middle class to give free money to people that choose not to work? Every single family would then do a calculation to see if its worth the second earner working or if they make more just staying home and getting a UBI. I would not be ok going to work to pay people that have decided that they are fine living on the UBI and don't want to work anymore. Seems like a pretty antagonistic solution to the problem.

dopidopHN 5y ago
You could also state : lower class people who choose to do work would be catapulted to another revenue level.
ac29 5y ago
Any credible UBI proposal always involves raising taxes to support payments to everyone. Usually the marketing pitch is that it will be a wash for the middle class (tax increases ~= UBI payouts). But of course "middle class" is poorly defined and spans a wide range of incomes that aren't taxed the same. Presumably a middle class family in San Jose would have a much different calculation than a similar family in Des Moines.
totony 5y ago
>So we are going to raise taxes on the middle class to give free money to people that choose not to work? 1. UBI aims to streamline redistribution of wealth and remove a lot of bureaucracy around it, reducing a lot of the cost of the current system 2. Why the middle class specifically? Upper class could shoulder most of the costs (if there are) easily >I would not be ok going to work to pay people that have decided that they are fine living on the UBI and don't want to work anymore. Then don't work. We already have taxes for things which are way less useful for society. You could choose not to work and live on with the bare minimum. That's the freedom UBI brings. Now probably you'd do something or another out of boredom which would end up being useful to society anyway. You'd just do it for free instead of having to convince someone to pay for it. EDIT: A better way to put it is to see UBI as an investment into people instead of as a cost. You give them what they need to live so that, in aggregate, they can innovate more and worry less about making ends meet. Notwithstanding the fact that this is something we can do, for somewhat cheap and would help a lot of people.
- nradov 5y ago
  Have you actually done the math? The reality is that there aren't enough upper class people to generate sufficient tax revenue for a meaningful UBI. While I do support higher taxes at the upper levels, you can only squeeze people so much before they decide to bail out and move to tax havens.
  - totony 5y ago
    >The reality is that there aren't enough upper class people to generate sufficient tax revenue for a meaningful UBI. What makes you think so? There are a lot of discussion online about the costs/benefits of UBI. This article has an US-centric view on how this could be afforded https://www.cnbc.com/2020/01/14/budget-neutral-universal-basic-income-plan-would-pay-1320-per-month.html https://www.cnbc.com/2020/01/14/budget-neutral-universal-bas...
    - giantg2 5y ago
      Interesting. Sounds like it axes Medicare, SS, and a large number of tax deductions (which is how the US implements a lot of policy). I'd love a simplified tax code, but unsure of the SS and Medicare removal. I wonder how that would look for people who are currently collecting, paying in at various stages, etc. That would be a massive windfall for most if the money paid-in was returned. I'm not sure which veteran benefits they want to get rid of specifically, but this could be a bad idea. One of the main ways to increase economic class if one is poor is to serve in the military and have the pay for college after they get out (yes, the payment could cover part of it, assuming they aren't using it for living expenses which would be mostly covered during their enlistment). The VA is under funded and doesn't have a great record, but that's so highly beneficial to many.
      - nybble41 5y ago
        > Sounds like it axes Medicare, SS, and a large number of tax deductions… … as well various special-purpose programs including housing benefits, SSI, SNAP, TANF, veteran's benefits, WIC, Medicaid, SS Disability, and disaster relief. I'm sure those currently receiving these benefits will be thrilled to find out that they're being replaced by a flat UBI payment of $15k/yr (minus taxes) with no allowance for special circumstances or hardship. > [SS and Medicare removal] would be a massive windfall for most if the money paid-in was returned. Undoubtedly, but what are the odds of that happening?
quirino 5y ago
Taxes wouldn't necessarily be raised. The idea would be to replace many (possibly all) of the usual government social services by these payments. You already pay taxes, and they are already used to fund other people. The idea would be to allow people to choose individually how to spend this money. The goal is efficiency, fair distribution of benefits and elimination of bureaucracy and administrative overhead.
- thecolorblew 5y ago
  Well, you'd still need the usual government social services though in order to protect those who might still be homeless or hungry even with the UBI.
dragonwriter 5y ago
> So we are going to raise taxes on the middle class to give free money to people that choose not to work? No, ideally, we would raise taxes on the upper class, to give money (compared to the status quo system where we already have means-tested poverty support aid) to the people choosing to do more work (since means-tested aid gets cut with additional income, but UBI doesn't, except by the effects of progressive taxation.) One way to do part of this: * Roll payroll taxes into progressive income tax (including basing eligibility for payroll-tax funded programs on total income, not just income currently subject to payroll taxes.) For Social Security, this may involve adding one or more additional “bend points” to the benefit formula. * Eliminate favorable rates for long-term capital gains, taxing them at normal income tax rates; to better target fairness for gains that genuinely require an extended period and which would be overtaxed if treated as income in the year of realization, allow freely recognizing income (not just capital income) for tax purposes in advance of realization, and additionally allow deferral of some portion of windfall (based on recent past years as baseline) gains over a period of several years.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
zozbot234 5y ago
That "free money" is just enough to subsist on and pull themselves up by their own bootstraps. Instead of "choosing not to work", think of it as "seeking work that's a good fit for them". The incentives are set up so that entering the labor market and improving their earnings makes them better off - which, incredibly enough, most poverty alleviation programs (which are a non-trivial chunk of all government spending) utterly fail at. > see if its worth the second earner working or if they make more just staying home The available experimental outcomes show that by and large, people that stay at home on a properly-designed UBI are those who can thereby make highly-valued contributions to the household, such as by raising young kids. Otherwise, they choose to work just as much.
Shorel 5y ago
It seems to be what is happening in Argentina.

Cthulhu_ 5y ago

A system like this exists in many countries already, except it's framed differently; in my own country, if you're below a certain income level, you are entitled to stipends to help pay for rent, health insurance, child (day) care and probably some other things. It's a socialist support system, and it's framed in a way that doesn't make 'the rich' feel like they are paying 'the poor'. Of course, there's a huge administrative overhead involved as well, plus there's a big case going on now of people falsely being accused of defrauding the system because some department got rewarded for finding fraudsters, or whatever the issue was. It financially ruined many people because they went from getting a bit of money to help make ends meet, to getting charged €30,000 or more in back pay and fines.