Thank you to the witnesses.
We know that the major determinant of poverty is whether someone is able to secure a job. The existence of government programming to help people who are unemployed ultimately exists to provide an income to people who would probably rather have their own income, so it should be the objective of any policy that combats poverty to enable people to work and establish their independence. But the income systems the government has in place, and the tax rates we impose on people on a combined federal-provincial basis, in many instances, make work a negative economic decision. In other words, individuals are worse off if they go into the workforce than they would be if they stayed unemployed.
My question is for Dr. Lee.
Do you have any comments on what the federal government can do to reduce what economists call the marginal effective tax rates, or the penalties that people face when they go to work?