alt Hacker NewsThe 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.
Replies
> Making more will never have you taking home less.
There are corner cases where making more can leave you with less outside of welfare. Tripping into the next IRMAA bucket is one simple to understand one.
But SNAP doesn't have a hard cutoff. There are welfare programs that do, but SNAP doesn't.
School lunch programs have two phases, free, and reduced. Medicaid varies a bit by state, but transitions to Obamacare subsidies. Hitting the cutoff for medicaid can really hurt, though, if your employer doesn't provide healthcare benefits.