Comment by JamesPeterson

In Australia, we almost match this by (a) having a "Low Income Tax Offset" (being fazed out in favour of an $18k tax free bracket) and (b) having a wide-reaching 'Centrelink' social security scheme. One of our greatest worries as a nation is that we're very dependent on such structural measures, but that we're using a medium-term cyclical benefit (the mining boom) to pay for it.