WE ARE ALL THIRD WAY:

Many of these programs are inefficient and keep people in perpetual poverty. We have about eighty programs that altogether cost $1 trillion. That's enough for every poor person to get $25,000 a year. However, poverty is still rampant with 10.5 percent of Americans mired in it (not counting those on social security) and that was before the coronavirus pandemic. Why?

Well, if you're on any anti-poverty programs like SSI, a job is sometimes not worth it. Many who get jobs lose benefits and the pay they earn amounts to less than simply not working. This is most prominent in SSI where one can lose benefits if one can get a job that makes a little over the income limit. A minimum wage job, for example, allows someone to save some cash for emergencies, but they would lose their benefits and it's hard to live on just $15,000 a year.

Social security is the same way. If one claims benefits and makes too much money, they lose those benefits. Often, the increase in income does not offset the decrease in benefits; from the worker's perspective, it's just not worth it. So, they're forced to surrender to the system and just not work. This creates terrible conditions for many of these programs, as they depend on friends and family members for other forms of support, which can often create coercive and abusive relationships. This is not a solution to poverty.

There is one solution to poverty, however, that doesn't suffer from these problems, and that is the negative income tax (NIT).

The NIT was proposed by the libertarian economist Milton Friedman. It is both a Left and Right idea, reducing poverty and promoting economic equality while cutting costs and rewarding work. In simple terms, it's the idea that you set a cap (say $25,000 a year) and anyone making less than that gets half the difference between the cap and their income level (assuming the tax rate is 50%). Those making above a certain amount pay a tax proportional to their income, while those between the guaranteed minimum income's cap and the income tax cap pay nothing and get nothing.

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