Did tax cuts on earned income reduce welfare participation in Canada?
Source: Australian Tax Forum Journal Article
Published Date: 1 Apr 2017
From 1986 to 2005, Canadian provinces used earnings exemptions to modify effective marginal tax rates on welfare participants' labour market earnings. Two policy variables were used: an exemption threshold and an above-threshold marginal tax rate. We estimate the effects of these two policy variables on provincial rates of welfare participation, while controlling for heterogeneous combinations of other welfare reforms and macroeconomic conditions across provinces and through time.
The data reveal large and statistically significant effects of earnings exemptions on welfare participation. Reducing the marginal tax rate levied on welfare participants' earned income by 50 percentage points was associated with a two percentage point reduction in the average province-year's participation rate or, equivalently, a 23% relative reduction below the unconditional mean rate of participation. Earnings thresholds and above-threshold marginal tax rates interact in ways that make it difficult to predict how changing either policy parameter in isolation is likely to affect participation. Cutting above-threshold marginal tax rates would appear to be the strongest variable through which earnings exemptions may effectively reduce welfare participation.
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Details
- Published By: Nathan Berg, Todd Gabel
- Published On:1 Apr 2017
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