What would it take?

[Schneed10]

I guess my concern would be how do you set a living wage at a level that ensures a minimum safety net, yet doesn't completely remove all incentive to perform jobs that barely clear the minimum wage?

Let's say you give your guaranteed living wage of $400 per week (equivalent to $10 per hour at 40 hours). Do you create a moral hazard where bus drivers and EMTs and countless other folks in similar positions say you know what I'd rather sit at home because the couple extra bucks aren't worth it?

And my second concern would be, damn, it would take a very highly graduated tax bracket structure to pay for this. The Netherlands used to have its highest tax bracket set at 72% prior to 1990, but since moved it down to 52%. Not sure how they pay for everything in their system, but I do know that if your top tax bracket is too high you have a way of squelching innovation.

How can we get stats on the number of new products, new life-saving medical advancements and drugs, come from the Netherlands? Because that to me is the crux of the whole thing. Investing in a new idea takes immense guts and risk, both personal and financial, and there needs to be immense reward on the other side of it. Without that reward it's quite obvious that fewer people would take the risk on new ideas.

So I'm not sure, but I'd have concerns about anything that raises the top tax bracket too high. The immense financial reward available in the US is the carrot dangling in front of a lot of scientific and medical advancements.