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La prime au travail du Québec : Un véritable outil d'incitation au travail ou une simple façon de baisser l'impôt?

Author

Listed:
  • Luc Godbout
  • Matthieu Arseneau

Abstract

This paper investigates the work incentives aspect of the new tax credit called Prime au travail introduced by the Quebec government in January 2005. The problem of work incentives is discussed and a review of the literature pertaining to the American, English and French experiences in this matter is presented. The authors observe the impact of the new tax credit on work incentives on several types of households and compare its parameters with those of foreign programs. The results indicate that the important budget increase linked to the replacement of the APPORT program by the prime au travail program does not necessarily imply that the welfare to work transition is encouraged to a greater degree. Moreover, foreign experiences show that our expectations about the impact of the prime au travail on work incentives might have to be revised downwards Cette étude porte sur l'évaluation du caractère incitatif de la nouvelle politique d'incitation au travail, appelée « prime au travail », mise en place par le gouvernement du Québec depuis le 1er janvier 2005. L'étude présente la problématique de l'incitation au travail et dresse une revue de la littérature concernant les expériences américaine, anglaise et française en cette matière. Les auteurs évaluent l'impact direct de la prime au travail sur différents types de ménages québécois et mettent en perspective ses paramètres comparativement aux expériences étrangères. Ils soutiennent que la hausse considérable des budgets consacrés à inciter les gens à travailler induite par le passage du programme APPORT vers la prime au travail n'implique pas nécessairement que le passage de l'aide sociale au marché du travail soit favorisé. De plus, à la lumière des expériences étrangères, ils concluent que les attentes à l'égard des impacts de la prime au travail en matière d'incitation doivent être révisées à la baisse.

Suggested Citation

  • Luc Godbout & Matthieu Arseneau, 2005. "La prime au travail du Québec : Un véritable outil d'incitation au travail ou une simple façon de baisser l'impôt?," CIRANO Working Papers 2005s-01, CIRANO.
    • Handle: RePEc:cir:cirwor:2005s-01
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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    work incentives; prime au travail; low incomes tax credit; Quebec; tax cut; incitation au travail; prime au travail; crédit d'impôt pour bas salariés; Québec; baisse d'impôts;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • H31 - Public Economics - - Fiscal Policies and Behavior of Economic Agents - - - Household
    • H5 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies
    • J68 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Public Policy

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