A funny post about redistribution/socialism

• Aubog007 wrote on 2014-02-05 09:15
  Oh i meant in a different sense, i know where my own taxes and wages go.
  
  
  Also from my own understanding of the minimum wage argument, they don't want 15 an hour, they want a high point so they can be flexible, instead of aiming low and getting shot down, they aim high so they can "negotiate".
  
  Also if they rose minimum wage to 15 an hour, the postal service would fire half the people and force the other half into overtime, it's cheaper, all of us are paid 12.50-14 an hour, (the temp employees) and i know they would certainly fire us to save money, since hiring would be cost prohibitive.
• Yoorah wrote on 2014-02-06 00:51

  Quote from Juno;1194908:

  It's a realistic scenario, but by no means does it present any evidence that it's a scenario that's likely more likely to occur than some other realistic scenario.
  
  More to the point, I don't agree that any element of socialism whatsoever is regressive, if that's what you are saying. For example, court appointed lawyers are a necessity, but providing them to anyone free of charge is definitely a socialist idea. The US criminal justice system would collapse otherwise, though.

  
  I never said that every element of socialism is regressive. :P Few would disagree on the lawyer point. At the same time, there are many cases that may seem beneficial to society at first glance, or to people who are not very intelligent and/or are too lazy or think a bit deeper. Obama's healthcare reform implementation comes to mind.
  
  Case in point, a newly published report by the CBO: [UB]Obamacare to cut work hours by equivalent of 2 million jobs: CBO[/UB]
  

  (Reuters) - President Barack Obama's healthcare law will reduce the American workforce by the equivalent of 2 million full-time workers in 2017, the Congressional Budget Office said on Tuesday, prompting Republicans to paint the law as bad medicine for the U.S. economy.
  
  In its latest U.S. fiscal outlook, the nonpartisan CBO said the health law would lead some workers, particularly those with lower incomes, to limit their hours to avoid losing federal subsidies that Obamacare provides to help pay for health insurance and other healthcare costs.
  
  White House officials characterized reduced hours as a reflection of new choices for workers.
  (cont.)

  
  This, my friend, is socialist regression at its finest. This kind of thing is not uncommon.
  
  

  Quote from Aubog007;1194930:

  Oh i meant in a different sense, i know where my own taxes and wages go.
  
  Also from my own understanding of the minimum wage argument, they don't want 15 an hour, they want a high point so they can be flexible, instead of aiming low and getting shot down, they aim high so they can "negotiate".
  
  Also if they rose minimum wage to 15 an hour, the postal service would fire half the people and force the other half into overtime, it's cheaper, all of us are paid 12.50-14 an hour, (the temp employees) and i know they would certainly fire us to save money, since hiring would be cost prohibitive.

  
  Everyone is aware of their primitive negotiation tactics, but all it accomplishes is them not being taken seriously. And let's imagine that they are successful and get a raise to 12/hr. Meanwhile, let's say you make around 12.50/hr. What effectively happens here is that your pay gets lowered to minimum wage. Sure, you still make the same money you did before the fast food workers got their raises, but the cost of living will rise to adjust to that. The result is that the minimum wage earners will gain little (at best--more likely is that they gain nothing or lose), meanwhile people with better jobs, like yourself, will get shafted. Your standard of living will decrease.
• Juno wrote on 2014-02-07 03:35

  This, my friend, is socialist regression at its finest. This kind of thing is not uncommon.

  
  
  The report states that people may choose not to work some jobs because they no longer need to hold down a second employment to cover their healthcare expenses. This is vastly different from people being forced out of work or choosing to piggyback off of the system.
• Yoorah wrote on 2014-02-08 00:49
  Sorry, but you completely missed the point. It never was about people being forced out of work (although that could be argued as part of another topic). The issue here is that it creates a huge incentive for people to switch from full time jobs to part time jobs so that they don't lose their subsidies. This traps those who would otherwise be responsible and hardworking people into relying on the government instead. This is a huge problem that's hard to go back on once created, as cutting social assistance is unfortunately not a very popular thing to do. Some countries in Europe have this especially bad; you can lead a much better life as an unemployed person with all the government assistance you're given, compared to someone working full time on minimum wage. I'm surprised you weren't able to understand this.
  
  I guess I could leave this here as well:
  

  CBO: Obamacare Is A Tax On Work, May Cut Full-Time Workforce By 2.5 Million
  
  By my read, the report released Tuesday by the Congressional Budget Office is the first time that CBO explicitly acknowledges the impact of Obamacare on the wage-labor relationship and incentives for full-time work.
  
  In its new budget outlook, CBO very clearly states that Obamacare amounts to an implicit tax on work and workers that will reduce employment by as much as 2.5 million jobs over the next ten years.
  
  Here’s how the CBO arrives at its new conclusion:
  
  As workers transition from part time work (without benefits) to full time work (with health benefits) many workers will actually lose income in the form of the subsidies that they will have to forgo (and the additional fact that lower wage workers, who are in lower tax brackets, won’t benefit as much from the implicit subsidy they will get from the special tax treatment of health benefits bought at work). CBO seems to focus mostly on people who are out of the labor force for a period of time and transitioning back to full time work, which suggest its estimates may be low.
  
  CBO states, in reference to these impacts, that the “exchange subsidies effectively constitute a tax on labor supply for a broad range of workers.” CBO focuses mostly on those transitioning to full time work (with benefits). But the same disincentives apply to workers on Obamacare who are already employed full time, and looking to grow their income.
  
  Translation? The old employer sponsored system forced people to stay in jobs they didn’t like because they needed the health insurance coverage. The new Obamacare system will force people to stay out of jobs they do want because they need to maximize their subsidies. And this is social progress?
  
  The congressional actuaries go on to state that forgoing Obamacare subsidies and returning to full time work with health benefits (for lower wage and middle class workers) amounts to an average, implicit tax of about 15% paid by each worker. CBO does note that these considerations only affect a segment of the workforce – specifically the middle class and working class who earn annual incomes that put them below 400% of the Federal poverty level (about $95,000 for a family of four). But that represents a large portion of the labor market.
  
  These disincentives can’t be easily fixed — they are baked into the structure of the Obamacare subsidies. A refundable tax credit, similar to the one offered in some conservative plans, sidesteps some of these effects.
  
  Also significant are some related points that CBO doesn’t tackle in its report. Principal among them is the fact that Obamacare is going to make certain wages sticky as more workers try and stay under certain income ranges in order to maximize their subsidies.
  
  The net effective tax rate on an incremental $1,000 in income could easily exceed 50% as workers are forced to forgo some of their subsidies for the additional income when they straddle certain wage bands. Obamacare implicitly assumes that people won’t grow their take home pay, but will instead remain fixed in certain income bands. So it imagines that workers won’t face these tradeoffs. That’s not true, and it’s certainly not consistent with peoples’ aspirations.
  
  (cont.)
  

  
  http://www.forbes.com/sites/scottgottlieb/2014/02/04/cbo-explains-how-obamacare-will-tax-low-wage-workers/
• Juno wrote on 2014-02-08 01:53

  Quote from Yoorah:

  Sorry, but you completely missed the point. It never was about people being forced out of work (although that could be argued as part of another topic). The issue here is that it creates a huge incentive for people to switch from full time jobs to part time jobs so that they don't lose their subsidies. This traps those who would otherwise be responsible and hardworking people into relying on the government instead. This is a huge problem that's hard to go back on once created, as cutting social assistance is unfortunately not a very popular thing to do. Some countries in Europe have this especially bad; you can lead a much better life as an unemployed person with all the government assistance you're given, compared to someone working full time on minimum wage. I'm surprised you weren't able to understand this.

  
  
  I understand that, but it did not seem to be the point you were making.
  
  As to that, I disagree with your parallels to European unemployment. Choosing to work a part-time job and paying a reduced price for healthcare is much different from getting handouts while unemployed. At the same time, it's troubling to ever have an income lip like the one described. There exist plenty of those, though, in our tax system. Since they say only 2.5mil jobs will be affected, I don't think it's cause for a huge uproar. That's only 1.7% of the jobs in the US. I won't try to come up with a fix for it on the fly, though, as I don't have all the info readily at hand.