A decent salary is the option

Rubio’s proposal to replace the EITC with a federal subsidy is a bad idea

Senator Marco Rubio’s idea to replace the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) with a federal subsidy is an awful proposal to fight poverty.

The EITC is an efficient way to raise the incomes of millions of working-class families who earn little. It is also a favorite target for conservatives, who complain that it is completely unrelated to paying income taxes and subject to fraud.

Therefore, it is not surprising that Rubio’s proposal on poverty replaces this credit with a “federal wage enhancement” in the form of a subsidy that would be added to paychecks. The potential presidential candidate’s idea is to expand the scope of the EITC, which focuses on workers with children, so that it reaches more single adults.

Aspiring to help more people is not bad. The issue is that the proposal is intended to be “neutral” for the budget, meaning there won’t be additional spending. Basically, it involves spending the same amount of money while adding more beneficiaries, resulting in less help for the children of poor working families. The math does not lie.

The federal wage subsidy that Rubio proposed will help the worker and the company, allowing it to continue paying a poverty wage—all at the expense of taxpayers.

This is not a conservative idea. It is more logical to increase the minimum wage, especially for employees of large companies with significant profits and solid cash reserves.

Today, increasing wages and the EITC are the most direct way to fight poverty. Rubio wants to stand out with new proposals, even if they are absurd and contradictory. Poor workers in the world’s richest country should not need a federal subsidy like the one the senator is proposing.

What they need is a decent salary that compensates their work and matches the real means of their employers.