benefits cliff
benefits cliff noun: a situation that occurs when a small increase in wages results in a sudden decrease in net income, due to suddenly becoming ineligible for benefits.
Noun
benefits cliff (plural benefits cliffs)
- A situation that occurs when a small increase in wages results in a sudden decrease in net income, due to suddenly becoming ineligible for benefits.
- There is this issue of the benefits cliffs, where some programs are designed so just a very marginal increase in earnings can result in a loss of a very important benefit.2014 July 20, Jana Kasperkevic, “The benefits cliff: when minimum wage increases backfire on the people in need”, in The Guardian
- The benefits cliff is a paradox. For employees living in poverty, the real cost of higher minimum wage could be benefits lost and a few dollars gained.2017, Pamela Hampton-Garland, Lisa Sechrest-Ehrhardt, Benson George Cooke, Socio-Economic and Education Factors Impacting American Political Systems, →ISBN, page 95
Forms of benefits cliff
| plural | benefits cliffs |
|---|---|
| alternative form | benefit cliff |
Questions about benefits cliff
- What does benefits cliff mean?
- Benefits cliff means a situation that occurs when a small increase in wages results in a sudden decrease in net income, due to suddenly becoming ineligible for benefits.
- What part of speech is benefits cliff?
- Benefits cliff is a noun.
- What is the plural of benefits cliff?
- The plural of benefits cliff is benefits cliffs.
Words near benefits cliff in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: benefits cliff (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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