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by krab 1822 days ago
That's a cliff in the benefits and tax system. If you make a tiny bit more, you shouldn't get worse off.

UBI could be a solution but has its own drawbacks. Progressive taxation without cliffs is another possible solution.

That is, you pay higher taxes but only from the amount above some threshold. That way, only the derivative of the tax rate has cliffs.

2 comments

> UBI could be a solution but has its own drawbacks. Progressive taxation without cliffs is another possible solution.

You mean with no public support? Because UBI is social support without cliffs, and typically paired with progressive taxation. So if you mean progressive taxation with social support and no cliffs, that's not an alternative to UBI so much as a long-winded description of UBI.

> That is, you pay higher taxes but only from the amount above some threshold. That way, only the derivative of the tax rate has cliffs.

That's (ignoring things like the injection of means-tested welfare into the tax system via EITC) progressive taxation and tax bracket marginal rates work normally. UBI is just adding public benefits in without introducing cliffs.

That’s how progressive tax systems currently work (and always have worked).