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Comment by k2enemy | Hacker News Reader

If UBI means that I get a check for $500 but at the same time my taxes go up by $500, I would have a hard time thinking that my income went up by $500.

Think of a world with two people. One rich one poor. Both get checks for $500, but the rich persons taxes go up by $1000 to pay for the program. The net effect is different for the two people.

Now in a more realistic setting with a range of incomes, the tax burden of UBI increases in a persons wealth. When you take the net of UBI income minus UBI taxes you get a progressive tax scheme. This means it is not a transfer in the way economists talk about transfers. You still have an effect where people get "punished" with higher taxes as their income goes up.

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> If UBI means that I get a check for $500 but at the same time my taxes go up by $500, I would have a hard time thinking that my income went up by $500.

If you get a check for $500 and your taxes go up by $500, that means your total compensation (all sources of taxable income including capital gains) is exactly at the national mean, which is to say that your income is way higher than the median income. As a mean income earner, you earn more than 80% of all Americans.

Are you in the top 20% of income earners? If not, then you come out ahead.

> Think of a world with two people. One rich one poor. Both get checks for $500, but the rich persons taxes go up by $1000 to pay for the program. The net effect is different for the two people.

That is true and it is by design. That's the way functioning progressive tax systems have always worked.

> You still have an effect where people get "punished" with higher taxes as their income goes up.

Yes, that's the point of a progressive tax system.

I agree with everything you said.

My original comment was in response to a comment that claimed that UBI does not suffer from the same incentives as needs-based programs and doesn't punish people for increasing their income.

My point was that this is not true. As your income increases, your relative tax burden from UBI also increases. In other words, as your income increases, "UBI income minus UBI taxes" decreases. Thus creating some of the same incentives as needs based programs. This is common to all progressive tax systems (which I support), and UBI isn't a magical exception.

I think you're misunderstanding the punishment. For needs-based programs, a lot of the time, you either get the $500 or you don't. There is no gradual falloff like there would be for taxes. So if the cutoff is $X and you earn $X-100 then you'd be punished for getting a job that pays $X+100. Before the new job you got $X+400 in the bank but now you only get $X+100. That doesn't happen in a UBI. Sure you'll end up getting "punished" by having to pay higher taxes however you're also earning more to begin with so there's never a scenario where you end up worse off for getting a better job.

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