> couldn’t we come up with a subsidy with less market distortion?
Yes. Universal childcare. Alternatively, payment for children (as a refundable tax credit or e.g. social security payment for one's first N years).
Yes. Universal childcare. Alternatively, payment for children (as a refundable tax credit or e.g. social security payment for one's first N years).
These are the same, just different execution. A slot for your child or children if you want to go to work, a payment if you want to stay at home to provide childcare. The care is universal, the delta being who logistically is providing the care.
Edit: Agree with y'all it is both a marketing and execution story.
Sure. But the branding matters. The former seems to provoke a vitriolic reaction in some people that, if widespread, could tank it in a way that the identical effect under the second's branding doesn't provoke.
I believe (anecdotally) that the rate of unwanted pregnancies are not impacted significantly by economic measures, only by ease of access to free birth control measures and widespread sex education, but it's an unpopular opinion. Welfare from the state is always a hard sell unless it benefits a vocal, influential segment.
One is creating defined resources and using bureaucracy to divvy them out and force people into buckets they might not be happy with. e.g. here's your government cheese.
The other empowers individuals to make their own decisions with cash and lets the free market figure out how best to mine those dollars from the individuals receiving them.
I suspect which option a person thinks is right largely depends on how they view humanity. Either you want to trust people to make their own decisions as adults, suffering the consequences of their decisions, or you want to extend childhood deep into "adulthood" making sure they can't make the wrong choice, because the nanny state makes the choice for them.
I supposed in the case of managed welfare, only those who manage become independently wealthy get the privilege of making their own decisions.
Instead, I would prefer a system where people receive payments relative to income, like a reverse tax system. This way, people in higher income brackets pay in (in the form of taxes) and people in lower income brackets get a pay out.
This is far more affordable than UBI, meaning we can actually do it, and also puts money where it is most needed.
I wouldn’t accept a job role with more responsibility if it meant losing my low-income subsidies and being taxed instead.
Society needs workers to accept more responsibilities and progress in their careers otherwise there will be less creation of jobs for those at the entry level.
I’m not saying UBI is the right solution, but it would reduce the “cliffs” where people lose money for progressing in their careers.
Wealthy people will pay much more in taxes than what they receive in UBI and you can make this system have the exact same distribution of money as the negative income tax system.
We do not do parents who aren’t already childcare workers a favor by skewing the market for their labor. For some parents, working in childcare is the right choice, but for many it won’t be, and when you artificially inflate short term wages only if they go into childcare, everyone loses.
It would seem to me that this is only likely to result in more childcare workers, making it more accessible to all, no?
What hypothetical effect would discontinuation of the subsidy have: while it's initially resulting in labor shortage reduction and then after time t?
Are counterfactuals helpful for this problem?