3 ms·

I agree with everything you said. My original comment was in response to a comment that claimed that UBI does not suffer from the same incentives as needs-base

I agree with everything you said. My original comment was in response to a comment that claimed that UBI does not suffer from the same incentives as needs-based programs and doesn't punish people for increasing their income. My point was that this is not true. As your income increases, your relative tax burden from UBI also increases. In other words, as your income increases, "UBI income minus UBI taxes" decreases. Thus creating some of the same incentives as needs based programs. This is common to all progressive tax systems (which I support), and UBI isn't a magical exception.

xmprt 4y ago
I think you're misunderstanding the punishment. For needs-based programs, a lot of the time, you either get the $500 or you don't. There is no gradual falloff like there would be for taxes. So if the cutoff is $X and you earn $X-100 then you'd be punished for getting a job that pays $X+100. Before the new job you got $X+400 in the bank but now you only get $X+100. That doesn't happen in a UBI. Sure you'll end up getting "punished" by having to pay higher taxes however you're also earning more to begin with so there's never a scenario where you end up worse off for getting a better job.