3 ms·

I did not see this anywhere in the article and most models of basic income i know do not do this. They instead only fill you up until you got amount X of money.

jre 13y ago
It doesn't seem to be available in English, but the organisation that wrote the initiative say so on their website[1]. They say "It is added to other revenues". So yeah, the intention is really to have an unconditional basic income for everybody and not some sort of negative income tax scheme as has been proposed elsewhere. [1] http://bien.ch/fr/page/initiative-federale#revenudebase http://bien.ch/fr/page/initiative-federale#revenudebase
- waterlesscloud 13y ago
  It makes sense to me to do that way, if you're going to do it at all. Then there's no disincentive to work.
  - backprojection 13y ago
    There's still an incentive to work with a negative income tax. This is an interesting discussion about it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtpgkX588nM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtpgkX588nM
Dewie 13y ago
The article says "a basic income for all adults", not a basic income for all adults below a certain income threshold.
mdda 13y ago
The problem is that guaranteeing a minimum means that a low-paying job that potentially pays a little more may result in no increase in total income : The pay being offset exactly by a withdrawal of the government handout. This is equivalent to a huge implicit tax rate for poor people, and is common effect in developed countries with so-called safety nets. By giving the basic income to everyone equally, everyone has an incentive to earn more money at every point on the wage spectrum. Higher earners will still pay higher marginal rates (likely everywhere else). But the situation of the highest marginal rates being experienced by the poor (which is common) is eliminated, as are the expenses of administering complex benefits and means-testing regimes.
thedufer 13y ago
You are talking about Guaranteed Minimum Income, which is very much different from a Basic Income (more descriptively known as an Unconditional Basic Income, emphasis on "Unconditional").

jre 13y ago

It doesn't seem to be available in English, but the organisation that wrote the initiative say so on their website[1]. They say "It is added to other revenues". So yeah, the intention is really to have an unconditional basic income for everybody and not some sort of negative income tax scheme as has been proposed elsewhere. [1] http://bien.ch/fr/page/initiative-federale#revenudebase http://bien.ch/fr/page/initiative-federale#revenudebase

waterlesscloud 13y ago
It makes sense to me to do that way, if you're going to do it at all. Then there's no disincentive to work.
- backprojection 13y ago
  There's still an incentive to work with a negative income tax. This is an interesting discussion about it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtpgkX588nM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtpgkX588nM

Dewie 13y ago

The article says "a basic income for all adults", not a basic income for all adults below a certain income threshold.

mdda 13y ago

The problem is that guaranteeing a minimum means that a low-paying job that potentially pays a little more may result in no increase in total income : The pay being offset exactly by a withdrawal of the government handout. This is equivalent to a huge implicit tax rate for poor people, and is common effect in developed countries with so-called safety nets. By giving the basic income to everyone equally, everyone has an incentive to earn more money at every point on the wage spectrum. Higher earners will still pay higher marginal rates (likely everywhere else). But the situation of the highest marginal rates being experienced by the poor (which is common) is eliminated, as are the expenses of administering complex benefits and means-testing regimes.

thedufer 13y ago

You are talking about Guaranteed Minimum Income, which is very much different from a Basic Income (more descriptively known as an Unconditional Basic Income, emphasis on "Unconditional").