picardythird

Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair.

What is your opinion on Negative Income Tax vs UBI? They both seem to offer similar benefits, but NIT is less expensive to implement. NIT does require some slightly more complex administration, but biasing the means testing for false positives would draw it closer to UBI while still helping the people it needs to, without the broad costs involved with a flat UBI.

Easier to administrate, yes, but I think that an NIT would have less financial strain.

In my opinion, marginal utility is king in this discussion. $12,000/yr is huge for a poor family, but unnoticeable to a wealthy family. Thus, state resources should be focused on optimizing money distribution based on how much a person's life will improve if given that money. Someone with a net income of $100,000 (adjusted for COL) is not struggling to find food and housing, whereas someone with a net income of $20,000 most certainly is. Assuming that "basic income guarantee of some form is approved, here is $XYZ to accomplish that goal" is passed into law, I would argue that focusing that money toward uplifting those most in need would have the most positive effect.

From a cash flows perspective, a UBI funded via progressive taxation would be exactly identical to a negative income tax (assuming certain properties of the progressive tax brackets).

And of course a rich person can suffer hard times, which is why I made sure to specify "net income"; medical debt, student loans, or sudden changes in status can mean "high gross earners" are actually "low net earners", who would benefit from either program.

You can cut the arts as much as you want; sooner or later these kids aren't going to have anything to read or write about.