Ce texte constitue une synthèse du Symposium sur les finances publiques au Québec tenu le 3 septembre 2020.
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La Chaire a organisé un Symposium virtuel sur les finances publiques québécoises qui s’est tenu le 3 septembre 2020. Le nombre d’inscriptions (plus de 1 000), la participation le jour même (plus de 500) et les retombées médiatiques nous ont confortés dans l’idée que les sujets qui y ont été traités intéressent un large public. Le présent document tente de réunir en un tout cohérent, structuré et homogène divers éléments de connaissance concernant les finances publiques au Québec qui ont été discutés lors de ce Symposium. Il est également possible de visionner en ligne chacun des segments de la journée.

Pour l’exercice 2020-2021, le Directeur parlementaire du budget prévoit un déficit budgétaire de 328,5 G$ pour le gouvernement fédéral.
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Le présent rapport propose une prévision de référence pour aider les parlementaires à évaluer les résultats économiques et financiers possibles dans le cadre des politiques actuelles. Les perspectives du DPB ne constituent pas une prédiction des résultats économiques et financiers futurs.

Ce rapport tient compte des mesures budgétaires fédérales annoncées jusqu’au 1^er septembre 2020 inclusivement. Les résultats financiers de l’exercice 2019-2020 présentés dans ce rapport sont des estimations du DPB et non les résultats définitifs des comptes publics.

Ce rapport expose les grandes lignes du train de mesures de soutien à la liquidité offertes par cinq sociétés d’État fédérales en réponse à la COVID-19. Le DPB fait une estimation de ce que représentent l’ensemble de ces mesures jusqu’au mois d’août 2020, et souligne l’insuffisance de données accessibles au public sur les risques que comportent ces mesures.

Des mesures sont nécessaires pour réduire les obstacles liés au sexe : les bonnes intentions ne suffisent plus. Malgré des efforts pour renforcer la diversité dans les milieux de travail, l’inégalité entre les sexes demeure une question de justice sociale autant qu’une priorité économique. Pourtant, les efforts visant à promouvoir l’inclusion économique des femmes continuent d’être entravés par le manque d’accès à l’information. Le rapport présente un résumé des études existantes et des problématiques actuelles en matière d’égalité des sexes, dont les enjeux exacerbés par la COVID-19, ainsi que des questions qui devront faire l’objet d’études sur des initiatives visant à réduire les inégalités entre les sexes.

L’objectif ultime du Canada devrait être le suivant : avoir un système solide d’assurance-chômage qui protège les travailleurs sans toutefois constituer une barrière à la croissance économique dans les régions du pays comptant un nombre élevé d’emplois saisonniers. Le régime actuel d’AE n’atteint pas cet objectif.
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Ce rapport se penche sur six possibles réformes de l’AE et leurs diverses conséquences, soit :

• resserrer les règles pour réduire considérablement le recours à l’AE comme soutien du revenu saisonnier ;
• préserver les droits acquis pour les personnes qui ont passé un certain âge et modifier les règles d’admissibilité à l’AE pour les nouveaux travailleurs seulement ;
• créer un nouveau programme destiné expressément aux travailleurs saisonniers ;
• accroître le recours aux travailleurs étrangers temporaires pour répondre aux hausses saisonnières de la demande de main-d’œuvre ;
• offrir des mesures encourageant le travail durant la basse saison ou resserrer les exigences ;

classer différemment les travailleurs saisonniers de longue date.

Une suspension totale ou partielle des versements au Fonds issus des revenus autonomes du gouvernement aurait comme conséquence de dégager une marge de manœuvre budgétaire chiffrée à 1,2 G$ ou 2,4 G$ dès 2021-2022. En 2030-2031, il est question d’une marge de manœuvre annuelle pouvant atteindre entre 2,1 et 4,2 G$.
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La pandémie causée par la COVID-19 est venue chambouler les prévisions économiques et financières des différents gouvernements du monde et celui du Québec n’a pas fait exception à la règle. Avant la pandémie, Québec voguait vers la réalisation d’importants surplus et vers l’atteinte anticipée de ses objectifs en matière de gestion de la dette publique, mais la crise sanitaire et la mise sur pause de l’économie sont venues modifier ce portrait. Le revirement se traduit notamment par la hausse le poids de la dette par rapport au produit intérieur brut (PIB). Dans ce contexte, le ministre des Finances a déjà indiqué qu’il désirait revoir ses cibles de gestion de la dette. Dans cette note, l’Institut de recherche et d’informations socioéconomiques  (IRIS) propose une analyse de la situation de la dette publique québécoise afin d’évaluer la meilleure marche à suivre pour le gouvernement.

Les dépenses et les revenus des administrations municipales ont augmenté de plus de 50 % au Canada de 2008 à 2018.
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Local Leviathans: The Rise of Municipal Government Spending in Canada, 1990–2018 finds that local governments across Canada have increased spending significantly in recent years—even before the COVID-19 pandemic and recession. In fact, from 2008 to 2018, total municipal spending in Canada increased 51 percent, from $68.4 billion to $103.3 billion. And total municipal government revenues—including taxes, user fees and grants from other levels of government—increased 54 percent over the same recent 10-year period.

Sans changement de politique, le budget fédéral ne sera pas équilibré avant au moins 30 ans, notamment en raison du vieillissement de la population.
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Canada’s Aging Population and Long-Term Projections for Federal Finances finds that the federal government is not on track to balance the budget anytime over the next 30 years as a result of Canada’s aging population and Ottawa’s historically high spending pre-COVID.

Les auteurs discutent des gestes de relance économique posés par l’Alberta, appuyés sur des investissements en infrastructures, et indiquent que les métiers qui sont équilibrés entre les sexes ou qui favorisent les femmes sont moins susceptibles de tirer des avantages directs investissements d’infrastructure.
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Alberta is banking on sizable investments in infrastructure as it looks to resuscitate an economy devastated by the double blow of an oil price crash and global pandemic. The fiscal injection announced in Alberta’s Recovery Plan lifts infrastructure spending to $10 billion, and will fund what Premier Jason Kenney calls the biggest build in Alberta’s history. Historic as it may be, the approach leaves women behind.

Les auteurs estiment qu’en supposant que le taux de sortie de chômage suit la dynamique des récessions passées, cela peut conduire à surestimer la gravité de la récession COVID-19.
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This paper develops a search-and-matching model that incorporates temporary unemployment and applies the model to study the labor market dynamics of the COVID-19 recession in the US. We calibrate the model using panel data from the Current Population Survey for 2001-2019, and we find that the model-based job finding rates match observed job finding rates during the entire sample period and out-of-sample up through July 2020. We also find that the Beveridge curve is well-behaved and displays little change in market tightness in 2020 once we use the calibrated model to adjust for changes in the composition of the unemployed. We then use the model to project the path of unemployment over the next 18 months. Under a range of assumptions about job losses and labor demand, our model predicts a more rapid recovery compared to a model that does not distinguish between temporary and permanent unemployment and compared to professional and academic forecasts. We find that in order to rationalize the professional forecasts of the unemployment rate, some combination of the vacancy rate, job separation rate, and the recall rate of workers on temporary layoff must deteriorate substantially from current levels in the next several months.

Selon les auteurs, le Congrès américain devrait travailler à rééquilibrer le code des impôts en augmentant les taux d’imposition sur le gain en capital et les dividendes au même niveau que celui des salaires.
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In an era of profound inequality, few issues illustrate such stark differences in economic priorities as capital gains taxes. Capital gains accrue overwhelmingly to the wealthy and receive favorable tax treatment in several ways. Cutting capital gains taxes would confer another windfall on the wealthy, exacerbate the tax preference for income from wealth over income from work, increase inequality, and drain revenue. By contrast, raising capital gains taxes and closing loopholes would make the wealthy pay more of their fair share, lessen tax code disparities, reduce inequality, and raise substantial revenue for the country.

Aux États-Unis, en 2017, le revenu moyen des ménages avant prise en compte des transferts et des impôts fédéraux était de 21 300 $ pour le quintile inférieur et de 309 400 $ pour le quintile supérieur. Après transferts et impôts, ces moyennes étaient de 35 900 $ et 229 700 $.
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The Congressional Budget Office regularly analyzes the distribution of income in the United States and how that distribution has changed over time. As an update to that series, this report presents the distributions of household income, means-tested transfers, and federal taxes between 1979 and 2017 (the most recent year for which tax data were available when this analysis was conducted).

Income

Households at the top of the income distribution received significantly more income than households at the bottom. Between 1979 and 2017, average income, both before and after means-tested transfers and federal taxes, grew for all quintiles (or fifths) of the distribution, but it increased more among the highest quintile than among all others.

Means-Tested Transfers

Means-tested transfers are cash payments and in-kind benefits from federal, state, and local governments designed to assist individuals and families who have low income and few assets. Between 1979 and 2017, households in the lowest quintile received more than half of all means-tested transfers. Average means-tested transfer rates, which are the ratios of total means-tested transfers to total income before transfers and taxes, rose over the 39-year period, primarily driven by an increase in Medicaid spending.

Federal Taxes

In general, higher-income households paid a higher average federal tax rate than lower-income households. Average federal tax rates fell between 1979 and 2017 across the income distribution, with the sharpest decline in the lowest quintile.

Income Inequality

Income inequality, as measured by the Gini coefficients for income both before and after transfers and taxes, rose between 1979 and 2017. (A Gini coefficient is a standard measure of income inequality that summarizes an entire distribution in a single number.) The degree to which transfers and taxes reduced income inequality over that same period increased.

Les avantages fiscaux pour les gains en capital sont coûteux, inéquitables et inefficaces. Des millions de dollars de fonds nécessaires, bénéficiant presque exclusivement aux membres les plus riches de la société ne servent pas à promouvoir la croissance économique de la manière dont l’affirment leurs partisans.
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The federal tax system and every state treat income from capital gains more favorably than income from work. Preferential capital gains tax treatment includes exclusions and seldom-discussed provisions like deferral and stepped-up basis, as well as more direct tax subsidies for profits realized from local investments and, in some instances, from investments around the world.

This policy brief explains state capital gains taxation, examines the flaws in state capital gains tax breaks, and proposes reform options that will help make state tax systems more progressive and more equitable.

To raise revenue in a progressive, efficient, and administrable manner, this chapter proposes a new national consumption tax: a broad-based credit-invoice value-added tax (VAT). Th e proposal comes with several qualifications: the VAT should complement, not substitute for, new direct taxes on the wealth or income of affluent households; to ensure the policy change is progressive, the VAT should be coupled with adjustments to government means-tested programs to account for price level changes, and with a universal basic income (UBI) program; to avoid having the VAT depress the economy, revenues should be used to raise aggregate demand in the short run and the Federal Reserve should accommodate the tax by allowing prices to rise. A 10 percent federal VAT that funded a UBI equal to 20 percent of the federal poverty line would be highly progressive (with net income rising among the bottom forty percent and not changing in the middle quintile) and would still raise more than 1 percent of GDP in net revenue. VATs are a proven success, existing in 168 countries. VATs have been proposed by both Democrats and Republicans in recent years. Concerns about small businesses, vulnerable populations, and the states can be easily addressed.

Il n’y a pas de mesure parfaite du revenu après impôt. Pour mesurer l’inégalité du revenu après impôts et transferts, le revenu disponible est probablement le concept le plus significatif.
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This paper studies inequality in America through the lens of distributional macroeconomic accounts—comprehensive distributions of the aggregate amount of income and wealth recorded in the official macroeconomic accounts of the United States. We use these distributional macroeconomic accounts to quantify the rise of income and wealth concentration since the late 1970s, the change in tax progressivity, and the direct redistributive effects of government intervention in the economy. Between 1978 and 2018, the share of pre-tax income earned by the top 1% rose from 10% to about 19% and the share of wealth owned by the top 0.1% rose from 7% to about 18%. In 2018, the tax system was regressive at the top-end; the top 400 wealthiest Americans paid a lower average tax rate than the macroeconomic tax rate of 29%. We confront our methods and findings with those of other studies, pinpoint the areas where more research is needed, and describe how additional data collection could improve inequality measurement.

Les auteurs concluent que les meilleures données sur les inégalités seraient publiées par les agences gouvernementales, responsables devant les élus, discutées par la presse et les partis concernés par leur amélioration, et basées sur un cadre conceptuel régulièrement mis à jour et accepté au niveau international.
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Recent studies argue that US inequality has increased less than previously thought, in particular due to a more modest rise of wealth and capital income at the top (Smith et al., 2019; Smith, Zidar and Zwick, 2020; Auten and Splinter, 2019). We examine the claims made in these papers point by point, separating genuine improvements from arguments that do not appear to us well grounded empirically or conceptually. Taking stock of this body of work, and factoring in other improvements, we provide a comprehensive update of our estimates of US income and wealth inequality. Although some of the points raised by the revisionists are valuable, the core quantitative findings of this literature do not appear to be supported by the data. The low capital share of private business income estimated in Smith et al. (2019) is not consistent with the large capital stock of these businesses.

In Smith, Zidar and Zwick (2020), the interest rate assigned to the wealthy is higher than in the datasets where both income and wealth can be observed, leading to downward biased top wealth shares; capitalizing equities using almost only dividends dramatically underestimates the wealth of billionaires relative to the Forbes 400. In Auten and Splinter (2019), business profits earned by the top 1% but not taxable (due in particular to generous depreciation rules) are classified as tax evasion; tax evasion is then allocated to the bottom 99% based on an erroneous reading of random audit data. Our revised series show a rise of inequality similar to Saez and Zucman (2016) and Piketty, Saez, and Zucman (2018) while allowing for a more granular depiction of the composition of wealth and income at the top.

La prochaine administration américaine devrait éliminer l’exigence d’une analyse coûts-avantages appliquée à la réglementation fiscale et exiger à la place une analyse économique comprenant les impacts sur les revenus, sur le niveau et la répartition des le fardeau fiscal ainsi que les coûts de conformité.
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In December 2017, President Donald Trump signed into law the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, the most significant tax legislation in 30 years. The rushed passage of the law meant that—even more so than usual—the Department of the Treasury and the IRS would need to fill in the details of the statutory ambiguities through regulation. Then, in April 2018, the Treasury Department and the White House Office of Management and Budget agreed to substantially expand the set of tax regulations reviewed by the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, part of the Office of Management and Budget. This agreement also expanded the set of regulations for which a cost-benefit analysis is required.

More than 2 years later, it is clear this experiment in cost-benefit analysis of tax regulations has failed. In a period of incredible regulatory activity from the Treasury Department and the IRS, the cost-benefit analyses released alongside proposed and final regulations provide little information relevant to assessing the merits of those regulations. Moreover, while tax experts criticize many of the TCJA regulations for providing unmerited windfalls to favored groups, the cost-benefit analyses for those regulations often fail to identify these windfalls or provide critical analysis of them. Regulatory giveaways in the interpretation of the new deduction for income from pass-through businesses, the tax on global intangible low-taxed income, and the base erosion and anti-abuse tax, for example, were subject to little or no critical analysis.

Australia’s Transition to Retirement Income Streams (TRIS) program aims to prolong participation for older workers (age 55 to 65 years) by offering early access to a worker’s compulsory retirement savings (superannuation). Using a difference-in-difference design, our results suggest a small labour supply response which increases after the program’s initial years. The size of the effects appear consistent with the program adoption profile which was low initially. For this reason, the results should be viewed as a lower bound on the true effects. We find individuals with higher incomes are more likely to adopt TRIS. At least half of program participants appear to be employing strategies to minimise tax, a behavioural response which seems at odds with the program’s intent.

En prenant l’exemple de l’Australie, les auteurs concluent qu’en termes de processus, les commissions royales ne sont pas des véhicules idéaux pour faire avancer la politique fiscale à court terme. Leurs processus longs et indépendants nuisent à la rapidité et à la pertinence de l’exercice.
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In Australia’s first five decades as a Federation, tax reform efforts were driven by the need to establish robust revenue bases for a growing nation and settle relative taxing responsibilities of the Commonwealth and state governments. These decades were also a time of crises with two world wars and a depression, these events being catalysts for tax and welfare reforms and influencers of the nature and extent of government in Australia.

The Constitution gave the Commonwealth exclusive access to customs and excise duties but other taxes were open to both levels of government and they soon found themselves in competition. That competition became most intense over income tax with efforts to resolve this being the focus of royal commissions into taxation in 1920–23 and 1932–34, then ultimately the 1942 Commonwealth takeover of income tax. This paper tracks those developments.

Au Royaume-Uni, parmi les travailleurs âgés, 37 % ont déclaré que le revenu de leur ménage était maintenant plus bas qu’en février (contre 7 % des retraités). Parmi ceux dont le revenu a baissé, 23 % avaient un patrimoine financier net pour leur ménage inférieur à 500 £ par personne.
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Older people have been severely affected by the coronavirus pandemic in terms of their health and mortality, but less focus has been given to the financial impact on older adults. Using new data from the COVID-19 questionnaire of the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA), we investigate how adults in their 50s and older have been affected financially by the pandemic.

We find that respondents who were in paid work immediately prior to the pandemic were more likely to see a negative impact on their financial situation than those in retirement. Almost a third of those in work report that their financial situation is now worse than before the pandemic, and over a third report that they have faced a fall in their household income.

While many older individuals have financial wealth that they might be able to draw on to help weather income shocks, this is not true of all. This is made clear by respondents’ reports of how they have adjusted to lower incomes: some have drawn on pension saving, borrowed from banks, or borrowed from friends and family. Overall, those who report being adversely affected by the COVID-19 crisis are disproportionately those who were in a less secure position financially before the crisis, heightening concerns about the impact of the crisis on financial inequalities.

Retirees are more likely to hold risky assets (which are exposed to market fluctuations) and the average proportion of total financial wealth held in risky assets is higher for retirees than those in work. However, many older workers are also exposed to falls in asset prices through defined contribution (DC) pensions.

Going forwards, there is a risk that the financial shock of this crisis will have long-term implications – if, for example, older workers who are made unemployed struggle to return to paid work and retire earlier than planned, if individuals draw on their pensions earlier than they planned or before fund values recover, or if individuals are unable to rebuild their pension funds in the wake of poor investment performance. Policymakers will need to ensure that older individuals are supported in any employment adjustments they make, and well informed in the decisions they make regarding their pensions.

En raison de la crise sanitaire entraînée par l’épidémie de Covid-19, les incertitudes demeurent exceptionnellement élevées. Elles fragilisent les exercices de prévisions macroéconomiques et de finances publiques et rendent délicate l’appréciation par le Haut Conseil des finances publiques du scénario du projet de loi de finances pour 2021.

Dans ce contexte, le Haut Conseil considère que le niveau d’activité qui serait atteint en 2021 dans le scénario du Gouvernement (-2,7 % par rapport à 2019), très dépendant de l’évolution de la situation sanitaire, est plausible. Il estime que la prévision d’activité pour 2020 est prudente et, à l’inverse, que l’ampleur du rebond prévu pour 2021 est volontariste.

Le Haut Conseil estime que la prévision d’inflation du Gouvernement est plausible, mais un peu basse. Celles d’emploi et de masse salariale pour 2020 et 2021 sont elles aussi plausibles.

Pour 2020 et 2021, le Haut Conseil considère que les prévisions des prélèvements obligatoires sont cohérentes avec le scénario macroéconomique retenu et que les prévisions de dépenses publiques sont vraisemblables. Le solde public nominal prévu pour 2020 et 2021 (respectivement – 10,2 et – 6,7 points de PIB) est atteignable mais cette prévision est affectée par les très fortes incertitudes qui entourent les conditions sanitaires et les évolutions macroéconomiques.

Le budget 2021 devrait inclure un stimulus en place pour 2021 et au-delà pour poursuivre le soutien ciblé et la demande, compte tenu de l’incertitude élevée autour de la COVID-19 et du Brexit.
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The Council’s mandate includes assessing the prudence of the Government’s fiscal stance. The basis for the Council’s assessment is twofold: first, the Council conducts an economic analysis, which assesses the appropriateness of the fiscal stance in terms of the principles of sound economic and budgetary management; second, the Council assesses whether the Government’s fiscal plans are in line with the requirements of the budgetary framework. This Pre-Budget 2021 Statement reviews the fiscal stance in advance of Budget 2021 in line with these aspects of the Council’s assessment. Since the Council’s Fiscal Assessment Report May 2020, the Government has published its July Stimulus. The Government did not opt to publish a Summer Economic Statement in 2020 as it had in previous years to provide an update on budgetary plans ahead of the budget or to update its May analysis for policy changes and other developments.

L’économie et le marché du travail australiens ont beaucoup changé au cours des trois dernières décennies. Ces changements incluent la part croissante des femmes dans la population active et la montée des services en tant que part de l’économie. Ces changements impliquent que l’utilisation des tendances historiques comme guide pour le nombre de bénéficiaires ou le coût du programme de chercheurs d’emploi peut ne pas fournir une image précise.
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This report examines historical trends in JobSeeker payment expenditure and recipient demographics, the drivers of these trends, and the implications for Commonwealth Government expenditure on the JobSeeker payment over the medium term.

Il faut que les politiques de soutien budgétaire se poursuivent en 2021, et les récentes annonces de mesures budgétaires complémentaires qui ont été faites dans de nombreux pays sont bienvenues ; le but doit être d’éviter tout resserrement budgétaire prématuré alors que les économies sont encore fragiles.
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La production mondiale s’est effondrée au premier semestre de 2020 tandis que la pandémie de COVID-19 s’installait, les reculs enregistrés ayant été supérieurs à un cinquième dans certaines économies avancées et de marché émergentes. Sans les mesures efficaces de soutien adoptées promptement par les pouvoirs publics dans toutes les économies, la contraction de la production aurait été nettement plus importante. La production s’est rapidement redressée à la suite de l’assouplissement des mesures de confinement et du redémarrage de l’activité, mais la reprise mondiale s’est quelque peu essoufflée pendant les mois d’été.

La dette nette en proportion du PIB a augmenté de 21,8 % par rapport à l’année précédente pour atteindre 101,9 % en août, son niveau le plus élevé niveau depuis 1960-61.
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Less than halfway through the 2020-21 fiscal year, the budget deficit has already topped full-year borrowing in 2009-10 (at the peak of the financial crisis). Despite that, year-to-date borrowing is lower than assumed in the central scenario from our Fiscal sustainability report, as both GDP and tax receipts have fared less badly than assumed. With the virus taking hold again and the Chancellor announcing new support measures, prospects for the rest of the year remain highly uncertain.

Economic policy yesterday caught back up with the ramping back up of social distancing restrictions by the Prime Minister earlier in the week. The Chancellor rightly announced new measures rather than sticking to plans to phase out help for workers and firms. 

His most significant policy was the Job Support Scheme (JSS), an extended, reformed and rebranded form of the existing partial furlough policy. Where firms choose to use it, this will provide very significant income protection for workers that employers bring back for more than a third, but less than all, of their usual hours of work.

But while the JSS will reduce the coming rise in unemployment, it will far from halt it. Indeed the policy has significant design flaws that will limit it’s ability to deliver against the Chancellor’s stated objective of ensuring as many people as possible are able to keep working in “viable jobs”.

The decision to require employers to contribute half of the costs of the scheme means that while some firms will wish to use it to retain workers because of high recruitment/training costs, it is not well designed to encourage firms to cut hours rather than jobs. This is particularly true in the low wage, high employment sectors like hospitality and leisure that are at the centre of the unemployment crisis we face.

While the Job Retention Bonus payment of £1,000 for employers that bring furloughed workers back until the end of January will help overcome some of these challenge, it is poorly targeted and even where it does help merely moves the jobs-cliff edge from October to January.

The Chancellor should scrap the Job Retention Bonus and use the £7.5 billion savings to ensure that employers do not need to make a material contribution to the costs of the JSS.

With unemployment now starting to rise, households are about to start feeling the living standards hit that government policy has, thus far, done an impressive job of shielding them from. Those losing their jobs and moving onto Universal Credit will see far bigger income falls than furloughed workers experienced. And as things stand that will be deepened by plans to reduce the level of Universal Credit by £1,000 next April, at a time when unemployment will remain high.

This crisis already feels like it has been with us for far too long, but the grim reality is that on both the health and the economic side it is here to stay for some time to come.

On Thursday the Chancellor’s brought economic policy back in line with the reality of a sharp rise in coronavirus cases and introduction of tighter social-distancing restrictions with his hastily-arranged Winter Economy Plan. In this note we briefly look at the economic context for the new measures announced today, before providing a detailed evaluation of their likely impact.

L’auteur étudie plusieurs indicateurs de bien-être et les comparaisons internationales effectuées tendent à démontrer que des niveaux d’imposition plus élevés sont plus susceptibles d’être associés à des niveaux plus élevés de bien-être économique.
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It has been claimed that higher levels of taxation weaken the economy but a comparative study of 188 economies shows that higher levels of taxation are correlated with higher average income. The positive correlation also exists with other measures of economic wellbeing.

Les dépenses publiques directes dans les industries à forte intensité de travail vont générer beaucoup plus d’emploi qu’un montant équivalent en réductions d’impôts.
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Bringing forward stage 2 of the tax cuts is ineffective stimulus. Up to 12 times as many jobs could be created if an equivalent amount of money was spent on labour intensive industries.