Images On Your Eyeballs (Noam Scheiber & Megan McArdle)

[DWAnderson]

Re the high marginal rates on the poor created by phasing out benefit programs-- this is one of the big (and seldom mentioned problems) with means testing various government benefit programs.

Sure you could phase the programs out VERY slowly to reduce this problem, but then you would increase the size of these programs beyond what is politically paletable (and pretty inefficient).

This is a problem inherent in the welfare state, where cash is given as a matter of right. The problem is ameliorated with private mutual aid societies where you have non-financial incentives to make more money even at a significant cost in benefits-- namely that you are perceived as virtuous by your neighbors.