The first safety-net design "topped everyone up" to the same line — so a musician earning 70% of the guarantee gained nothing by working. Half of the lower earners in the simulation rationally quit, and output fell by a quarter. The ratified fix: every unit you earn adds half a unit above the guarantee, always. Drag your earnings below and watch the difference between the cliff and the ramp.
What to notice. Under the cliff, the flat grey zone is where effort is literally worthless — earn 0 or earn 99, you take home the same 100. That flat zone is what made half of the simulated lower earners quit. Under the ramp there is no flat zone anywhere: every additional unit earned always raises take-home by half a unit, at every income, until you outgrow the guarantee entirely. Toy numbers, real principle — in the registered re-test, the ramp retained essentially all of the economy's output. Fine print from the honest record: the floor these designs sit on is a funded module, not a promise — it never prints money, and if funding falls short it rations honestly rather than inflating.