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Comment by shams93 | Hacker News Reader

However you could use the tax system to do things like pay certain workers "reverse income tax" where instead of taxing their income you support the lower prices with tax credits for their profession.

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Are you talking about a Negative Income Tax? It is one of the most effective ways to rebalance the economy (Milton Friedman famously supported one), and can be designed to work like a Universal Basic Income. The other common option is the EITC, but both NIT and EITC only help those who file taxes in the first place.

Why that baroque approach vs expecting, and maybe enforcing, that companies pay a fair wage.

If everyone ought to have something, it shouldn’t matter whether they’re employable at the moment. How their industry is doing, macroeconomic cycles, whether their skills are in demand, whether they produce enough value to justify hiring at the wage you consider fair, whether bosses and coworkers like them personally. None of that should be an input into whether or not you can see a doctor or eat a meal.

Cutting checks is a lot simpler than policing the terms of private transactions. Particularly when not all those transactions look like full time work for one corporate employer.

The proposed approach amounts to subsidizing human labour over automation. That night be a legitimate public policy aim.

More than subsidizing humans, it actually pumps money directly into automation. Currently the value prop of an automated solution to companies is the total cost of human labor it replaces. If humans get more expensive, the machines/software looks more appealing to implement.

Machines work 24/7, never get sick, and don't unionize.

Why then tie it to labor at all, why not the full UBI? Also why tax credits - many low wage jobs aren't well served by annualized refunds (you can see that in stats where medical visits surge for a bit after tax refunds...).

A NIT and UBI can be designed to be equivalent: http://www.scottsantens.com/negative-income-tax-nit-and-unco...

A UBI of course has a lot of other benefits (being distributed monthly or more often, going to people who are unable to work, being universal and therefore more resistant politically).

Because a negative income tax increases labor market attachment, giving workers more skills, work experience and pride and increases the number of people working. A higher minimum wage on the other hand reduces the number of people working and has no positive effects on employment or skills. From a politician’s perspective a minimum wage is superior because the link between a higher minimum wage and greater unemployment is opaque but that from subsidizing employment is quite direct. Also all of the social cost of subsidizing employment is borne by the government while that of the reduction in labor supply and employment is borne by employers who can’t find workers and potential employees.

You’re right that annualized refunds are far from ideal. Monthly would be better.

Argument in video form, with diagram below.

https://mru.org/courses/principles-economics-microeconomics/...

Because you might think that people having employment is a good thing, worth encouraging through the tax / benefit system.

Also, tax credits can be (and are) paid weekly.

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