If it is going to work it needs to be tied to some measurement of cost of living.
Agreed. There is some difficulty with c.o.l. being different in different parts of the country (cost of housing in particular) so it may need to be locally adjusted as well as inflation adjusted.
Cost of Living Calculator
What we should really want is living wage (that's what all the latest protests at fast food franchises are about):
Living Wage Definitions
MIT Living Wage Calculator
Living Wage Calculation for Austin city, Travis County, Texas = $9.43 for a single person, $19.56 for an adult with one child.
Living Wage Calculation for Topeka town, LaGrange County, Indiana = $8.65 for a single person, $16.99 for an adult with one child.
$9.00/hr x 8hr/day = $72/day = $18,720 for 52 five day work weeks per year, so this is close to the $50/day every day = $18,250.00 (this would compare to $8.77/hr for 54 five day weeks per year) so this is in the right ball-park and still leaves some room for 'incentivising' people to work to realize better living conditions.
Poverty wages for the same areas are all the same: $5.21 for a single person, $7.00 for adult with one child
It seems rather onerous to me for someone earning below the living wage to be paying taxes, but they get dinged several thousand dollars annually.
This would also need to include universal health care for everyone ... if you have a $50.00 annual copay each for Dr visits, annual medications, etc, then you pay cost for anything below that or $50.00.
Enjoy.