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Comment by umeshunni | Hacker News Reader

> An annual wealth tax applied to the world’s richest would raise U.S. $2.52 trillion a year > An annual tax on the world’s richest would be enough to lift 2.3 billion people out of poverty

So, the US govt printed an additional $2 Trillion last year. How many people did it lift out of poverty?

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https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2021/09/who-was-lifte... 11.7 million or so, for $400 billion accounted for. I'll leave others to track down the rest.

"if we give people more money, their reported income becomes higher"

I mean, sure.. but I'd want to see the flow on effects. (Health, education, jobs, etc).

From my experience it heads in the same direction, though the exact numbers will differ depending on exactly what you're asking.

Looking up some data on UBI might be worthwhile, even if it's not the same as ad hoc "stimulus".

Note the paper advocates two separate policies (the second even less likely to happen than the first due to lack of political will) - taxing the global richest; spending it on the global poorest. Printing money isn't terribly relevant to this proposal since most of the global poor do not live in countries that can print US $.

>How many people did it lift out of poverty?

Well, that's a trick question without considering how many were or will be knocked down a notch or two in living standards at the same time, including many pushed into actual poverty themselves, only with lingering downward momentum that "keeps on giving" in ways that are opposite of those being "lifted".

> So, the US govt printed an additional $2 Trillion last year. How many people did it lift out of poverty?

It devalues the dollars for everyone, so the rich gets a bit poorer overall (unless they get a substantial slice of that 2T$, which is likely if they take care of some government contracts), while the poor are poorer too.

Anyone holding cash assets gets poorer. But the rich have very little (no) cash holdings.

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