The UK provides an instructive example of the administrative challenges of distributing means-tested tax credit benefits on a monthly basis. In 2003 they implemented a big Child Tax Credit and Working Tax Credit. The design is in many ways similar to current US proposals
Immediately, they ran into major overpayment problems. About 1/3rd of all benefits were overpaid, and there were reports of confusion and hardship as people had to pay back welfare debt at the end of the year
Policymakers admitted that they were blindsided by how many changes in circumstance people had over the year
To address this, they implemented a large income disregard. This cutdown on overpayments, but at the expense of accuracy and horizontal equity (people with the same annual income could get different amounts depending on where they started)
As austerity came after the financial crisis, they reduced the income disregard again, and the overpayment problem came right back. But by this point the tax credits were slated to be replaced by Universal Credit. So they never really solved the problem, they just sort of gave up
By the way I should link the paper this is from, which has a really good look at two other programs (Universal Credit, and some Australian benefits) as well ingentaconnect.com/content/tpp/jp…
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No one should be in poverty simply because they have kids! Great report out today from PPP on designing a universal child benefit. peoplespolicyproject.org/2021/01/14/now…
Current child tax credits are designed to exclude the bottom 10% of tax units, and partially exclude even more.
The current tax credit regime reduces poverty a lot on paper, but this is in part due to gaming the head count poverty metric. Giving a lot of money to people right around the cutoff, while none to people in deep poverty, creates a misleading picture of effectiveness
The left has a tendency towards negativity, which 9 times out of 10 leads to the correct analysis, but also leads to missing real successes like expanded UI
That’s how you could have people calling CARES the “worst bill in 25 years”. It also reflects a general lack of focus on cash welfare on some portions of the left
When it comes to actual politicians, I think they may have been cautious about bragging about the UI generosity for fear of raising the issue of essential workers getting paid less than unemployed people. And the implementation problems also made it hard to brag about
27 year olds are the most likely age group to have medical debt, likely in part because that's the year people are removed from their parents health insurance healthaffairs.org/doi/abs/10.137…
Dec 15th is the deadline to enroll in ACA plans (later in many states)
If you make between 100-200% of the federal poverty line, you're probably best off with a Silver plan
Between 200-400%, you're probably best off with a Gold or Bronze
Above 400%, Bronze is likely best
In the 100-200% range ($12,760-$25,520 for an individual, $26,200-$52,400 for a family of four), you get Cost Sharing Reduction payments. You probably qualify for a free Bronze plan, but silver will most likely be a better deal healthaffairs.org/doi/full/10.13…
From 200-400% FPL (up to $51,040 for an individual, $104,800 for a family of four), you're probably better off with a Bronze plan, but there's a chance that silver loading has made Gold plans particularly cheap (sometimes less than Silver), in which case it's probably worth it
He was a key architect of welfare reform, and he said as recently as 2016 that he still thought it was a success. In 2004 he bragged about how he had outflanked the GOP on support for work requirements
I sometimes check on this guy, and it's always pretty depressing. The "selling pep talks about how to grind your way to getting rich" industry is one of the worst grifts