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”.
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”.