If you give everyone the same amount, but then just take it right back from the rich in taxes, this is basically the same a just paying the poor for being poor.
No. There are cases where a person has less money/health insurance if they get a low paying job than if they register as unemployed. Marginal tax rates of >100% do happen in the real world and effectively lead to “paying people to be poor”.
Ah, so you and DanielLC define “paying people to be poor” to be when government incentives make it better for people with less normal income than for people with more normal income.
I was trying to say that we would still be paying people to be poor, just not enough to cancel out 100% the negative of being poor, so that making more money is still monotonic in increasing happiness.
I think my definition is more reasonable, but yours is also reasonable, as it seems to capture some extra connotations. I retract my complaint under your definition.
In the real world there are cases where a person with 0 income get’s X support from the government.
On the other hand there are people with income less than X who don’t get government support.
That means there an incentive out there to have income 0. The phrase “paying for” suggests to me that you create a monetary incentive for something.
I think you dilute the value of the phrase “paying for” when you don’t let it mean “create a monetary incentive for something”.
No. There are cases where a person has less money/health insurance if they get a low paying job than if they register as unemployed. Marginal tax rates of >100% do happen in the real world and effectively lead to “paying people to be poor”.
Correct me if I am wrong:
Ah, so you and DanielLC define “paying people to be poor” to be when government incentives make it better for people with less normal income than for people with more normal income.
I was trying to say that we would still be paying people to be poor, just not enough to cancel out 100% the negative of being poor, so that making more money is still monotonic in increasing happiness.
I think my definition is more reasonable, but yours is also reasonable, as it seems to capture some extra connotations. I retract my complaint under your definition.
In the real world there are cases where a person with 0 income get’s X support from the government. On the other hand there are people with income less than X who don’t get government support.
That means there an incentive out there to have income 0. The phrase “paying for” suggests to me that you create a monetary incentive for something.
I think you dilute the value of the phrase “paying for” when you don’t let it mean “create a monetary incentive for something”.