Re:The Indian government is set to endorse Universal Basic I...
by surfmike on Thursday January 05, 2017 @04:54PM
(#13331777)
I initially interpreted the parent to say that employed people don't receive UBI. If they do, it is in fact a UBI but then does not get around the cost issue (I comment about that on a sub thread).
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Re:The Indian government is set to endorse Universal Basic I...
by jganetsk on Thursday January 05, 2017 @11:19PM
(#13333899)
Absolutely it does get around the cost issue. Someone with no income receives just a UBI. They cost the system $20. Someone with non-zero income recives both a UBI and a higher income tax burden. What net impact does that individual have on the cost of the system? If their income is greater than the UBI... the impact might be zero, or negative.
Re:The Indian government is set to endorse Universal Basic I...
by surfmike on Friday January 06, 2017 @01:03PM
(#13338540)
Assuming a 40% tax (no idea what it would actually be in practice), everyone earning less than $50 a month would be a net cost.
As a thought experiment, imagine that you increased the UBI payments so that they took up all the gross income of the country. Now your tax rates are 100%, even though the "net impact" of the redistribution is 0. A smaller UBI is the same concept, just the percent of income distributed is smaller. The bigger the UBI, the larger your tax rates on all workers. As those tax rates reduce the supply of labour, the costs mount even more.