alt Hacker NewsAnd note that actually getting work removed the controlled money. That's quite a disincentive to actually finding work. Welfare systems very often end up being a trap because of this--people can't afford to succeed because they'll hit some tripwire that makes them worse off.
I'd like to see welfare systems and tax codes modified with a rule that no situation can cause more than a 50% marginal "tax". (Which would mean many cutoffs in the tax code would effectively be replaced with phaseouts even if Congress didn't specifically fix them.)
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The tax code (at least in the US, YMMV in other countries) is already progressive. Making more will never have you taking home less.
However, most welfare systems have hard cutoffs. If you get $500 in SNAP a month and make $500 a month, you have $1000 to last a month. And if the cutoff is $501, making that one extra dollar is going to cost you $499.
What would be more difficult, also gameable, but better all around is to have benefits adjusted to get people to a baseline.
Say the poverty level is $1000 a month. You get $1000 - X, where X is how much you made in that month.
> Welfare systems very often end up being a trap because of this--people can't afford to succeed because they'll hit some tripwire that makes them worse off.
This is very much a problem in the US. I've lived it myself before I was making 6+ figures, and I've known many people that lived through it as well.
I had a higher quality of life working very part time minimum wage + benefits (SNAP, free healthcare, subsidized housing) than I did making 50k/year.
Most on welfare like that, you actually end up with a much worse quality of life the moment you make a little more money or find a better job and lose your benefits. There's far too big of a gap between "needs assistance" and "makes enough money to have the same or better quality of life as being on benefits" so for most, you just purposely work less or work lower paying jobs in order to keep collecting benefits because to do otherwise means you are worse off.
For someone who has subsidized housing, free healthcare, and SNAP, why would purposefully lose all of that, but still remain poor, just because now you work 40 hours/week instead of 20. Unless you can make a huge jump (say, go from minimum wage up to $75k+/year immediately), don't bother trying to get off welfare, it won't do you any good.