Lexicus
Deity
Is he? I thought he was just using the standard neoclassical nonsense argument against the minimum wage that relies on a statistic and entirely simplistic supply and demand model.
[RD] What is the Point of a Minimum Wage?
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I requested a definition for "outperform." You tell me it doesn't matter.
Well, excuse me, but it does. That's why I asked. Please answer without a wall of jargon.
There is no need, because there are a variety of dimensions that a cheaper employee can outperform a more expensive one. Pick one where my sentence makes sense.
Kind of. I'm speaking from the standpoint that there are superior alternatives.
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Let me get this straight. According to you, we already have universal basic income.
So explain to me why people are still having to jump through hoops for welfare and AISH and other benefits when they're unable to work. If we have UBI already, none of those other programs should exist, right?
Yet they do, and every month I'm required to submit paperwork to my case managers to prove that I actually used this benefit for its intended purpose. Every year I go through an annual review because some paper-pusher in Edmonton who has no medical credentials is looking for an excuse to declare me cured and therefore no longer a client (despite a mountain of paperwork from various doctors with real medical credentials).
We don't have a Universal Basic Income. If it came across that way, apologies. If anything specific suggests I thought we do, point it out so that I can consider editing it.
I mean that we have a superior alternative to raising the Minimum Wage too high. Even more, because we have people who are self-identifying as liberals that are (imo) defending minimum wage (inappropriately), then we've lost the ability to push forward the UBI, because we don't have people who can coherently discuss the topic on its merits. Until people can recognize the damages done by a minimum wage, they will not be able to explain a superior position to anyone who doesn't like the minimum wage.
But no, even with a UBI, we will still need systems such as AISH, etc. There will always be people who deserve subsidy vastly greater than we can afford for everyone. Also, sometimes services will be better provided by allocation of public funds rather than asking people to buy them individually.
@Lexicus , I didn't drop our conversation. It deserves a properly crafted reply, not simple responses. Later in the week.
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There has been a proposal in the UK to replace the personal tax allowance with a payment of £48 per week to all adults with an income of less than £125,000 per annum.
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/ukne...eek-says-thinktank/ar-BBUC4m4?ocid=spartandhp
Hasn't got a hope of becoming law here under the present government but would be revenue neutral and better than the present system for 88% of adults.
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/ukne...eek-says-thinktank/ar-BBUC4m4?ocid=spartandhp
Hasn't got a hope of becoming law here under the present government but would be revenue neutral and better than the present system for 88% of adults.
metalhead
Angry Bartender
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I absolutely 100% support ideas that turn tax deductions and credits into weekly cash payments. So many tax benefits miss millions of eligible people who fail to claim them on tax returns - estimates are that 20% of Americans fail to claim the earned income tax credit, potentially missing out on thousands of dollars in tax refund.
hobbsyoyo
Deity
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Every time that conservatives tout some new plan to help disadvantaged people that comes down to a new tax break, I can't help but wonder if they are totally disconnected with how most people live or if they purposefully want to position themselves as 'helping the poor' or whatever but also still not helping them as much as they could.
A once-a-year windfall doesn't do a lot to help pay the bills that are due right now - and even if people take the lump sum and appropriately spend it over the next year, it doesn't help at all that first year.
I don't like the idea of a clawback. But I have never figured out how to sell a top up without one. The math doesn't need it, but people seem to think it does.
People also borrow against their tax return, which is honestly one of the worst things ever.
People also borrow against their tax return, which is honestly one of the worst things ever.
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hobbsyoyo
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Can you explain what you mean?
stinkubus
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The IRS aggressively audits people who claim EITC
https://www.propublica.org/article/earned-income-tax-credit-irs-audit-working-poor
Well, fuzzily, in the proposal all income earned between £125k and £127.5k is taxed at 100%. If you earn £124.9k, you get £127.4k. If you earn £126k, you get £126k.
I don't like welfare traps. But more, under UBI discussions, people seem to think that the UBI needs a differential tax tax. That some people need to get 'zero' from the UBI to make it work I've not figured out a way to explain that they don't with just a couple of sentences.
hobbsyoyo
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Worth pointing out here (as I have elsewhere) that this is a new push by Trump. Since Republicans have taken to gutting the IRS to meet their policy objectives of making the rich richer, there's a bit of a zero-sum game afoot where they can't afford to screen everyone they should and are screening less returns of the rich so they can screen more poor people at the directive of Trump. The opposite was largely true under Obama.
stinkubus
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Yeah this is more or less what's happening. They are all getting a "holiday" because the statue of limitations is going to run out on tons of wealthy tax cheats before anyone will even have a chance to go after them.
hobbsyoyo
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It also undermines the conservatives claims to want a more efficient, smaller government. If you are going to chronically underfund your government, it doesn't make sense to go after the taxmen. And if you are going after the taxmen, it makes sense to continue to audit the people who pay the most in taxes and are the most aggressive in tax dodging. At best they're going to squeeze pennies out of poor people and it's especially disgusting in that those same poor people are most likely underpaying due to how insanely complicated our tax code is rather than trying to cheat the system. They don't have their own tax lawyers to figure it out the way corporations and obscenely rich people do.
stinkubus
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It isn't, wasn't, and never will actually be about small government. They themselves don't use that particular talking point anywhere near as much as even 10-15 years ago.
If you want to keep inflation low, because that's what keeps the Fed from changing how they bribe the rich, then take more money from people at the bottom. Easypeasy.
A tax cut is pointless for people who have no taxable income.
Thats the best argument against our system of personal tax allowances. Although people on PAYE (most employees, benefit claimants etc) don't have to apply for them, they are taken into account by HMR&E, they help people with decent incomes much more than the low-paid, unemployed, pensioners,disabled etc whose income may not come close to the allowance.
astrallite
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I'm pretty sure that's why conservatives of the past (Nixon, Milton Friedman) were for a negative income tax. You can sell tax cuts for the rich if it means everybody gets some of the action. Now the Republicans are nakedly tribal and dont even believe they are Americans anymore but Republicans first. That's why they can rationalize a tax increase for blue state residents in a bill that's supposedly about tax cuts.
