[iggy_oi]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

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.

So you clearly understand that the labour pool is already shrinking because businesses are already cutting jobs to reduce costs. In which case the best argument you can make is they're damned if they do, damned if they don't raise the minimum wage. However raising the minimum wage now will actually benefit those currently working minimum wage right now, and put them in a position to do things like further their education so they can not be stuck if and when their job is eliminated.

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.

Prices will go up regardless of this tax, will it create a short term surge? Absolutely. However you are still completely stuck in the mindset that the bad will outweigh the good, ie there will be more income lost from job cuts than there will be income increase from the raises, and you don't have any real data to back this claim up. I'm not saying it's not possible, I'm simply stating that passing it off as a fact is inaccurate.

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.

The math for the numbers on the lower class(anyone currently making less than $14/hour) does not support your claim. As far as small businesses are concerned, there may be hardships on some, but you appear to believe that it will absolutely crush every business, again while that may be a possibility, it's also possible that it will not be the case and that the majority of this talk from businesses is selfserving in order to keep things the way they want.

For those who will claim I'm talking conspiracy and what not let's just take a brief look at what has happened historically: