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Originally Posted by iggy_oi
Workers having more disposable income will help boost some businesses. That being said, some businesses will suffer due to the increased labour costs, however that does not mean that those same businesses won't have the labour costs offset by an increase in business from those extra consumer dollars from minimum wage workers. People can make the argument until they're blue in the face about businesses contracting because of the increase, but I have yet to see any concrete data that indicates the bad will certainly outweigh the good, my guess is you are in that same boat.
As for the carbon tax and the increased cost for goods and services, the attacks from the right wing parties claims that this tax will cost families about $600/year, but if a worker goes from making $13/hour to $15/hour they will have over $4k annually in extra income, which will offset that cost substantially, not to mention the rebates of up to $420 annually for certain incomes(minimum wage earners included) which will also help.
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So your basically saying they won't pay taxes on the increase? because yes a $2.00 an hour raise is theoretically $4000.00 per year which is pre tax.
But what you're ignoring is this. The labor pool for minimum wage workers will shrink. Its already happening as companies automate, reduce hours or outright shrink their labor force. So its more then likely that the number of minimum wage workers will shrink as some will transition to not having a job, and the overall dollar pool will shrink as hours are reduced. on top of it, the $600.00 per year increase in costs off set by a rebate that doesn't cover it means that they have less income. As well the CTF has looked at overall costs of the carbon tax which includes increases to consumer goods essential goods, peoples rents will probably be closer to $1000.00 so they'll be out probably more like $600.00 per year, which to a low income earner is a big hit.
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The article below doesn't say whether or not that total cost is just for the direct tax or if it includes the increase in prices of other goods, but for arguments sake I'll assume it doesn't, so let's say a family currently spends $200/week on groceries and those go up by 5% because of this tax, that would add $520 annually, so minimum wage earners are still coming out ahead. While higher income earners may not get a break, I think it's fair to say they are likely in a better position to lower their overall costs by taking measures to reduce their impact from the carbon in other ways, and typically those measures create an economic boost by creating income for others(renos etc)
http://www.cbc.ca/beta/news/canada/c...aign-1.3790992
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Groceries go up
Gas goes up
Rent will probably increase
Utilities will certainly increase
the price of luxury goods will increase (You don't think things like dinners out and theatre tickets aren't going to be effected.
Every retail item will go up to offset the increased costs of their labor and their leases.
Property taxes are going to have to go up as the cities aren't excluded from the carbon tax.
Take your kids to the pool or the rec center you can bet those memberships will increase.
Everywhere that there's a lightswitch or a furnace is going to get more expensive
You want to take your kid out for ice cream, that'll increase.
We're going to be talking about death by a thousand small cuts here on both sides of the spectrum. Everything is going to increase, and employment of minimum wage workers will probably decrease.
You can probably argue stagnation of spending at best. I'm arguing that this carbon tax is actually going to hurt low to low middle class people a great deal. the minimum wage should have been increased, but now its a radical increase over the next couple of years that's going to do immense harm to the small business sector where you find a lot of these workers.
The $420.00 rebate is a joke because its frankly under what looks like a minimum cost increase which puts people behind and again the $600.00 pricing that they're putting on it looks to be a calculation simple on gas use and utility bills and its impossible to calculate based on spending habits (ie groceries and entertainment) which are all going to increase.
Because the lower income people can't afford to buy a new car or a more efficient furnace they have no real avenues to reduce their carbon tax unless they reduce their spending so that they don't get hit with it as hard.