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Macro-based effective tax rate (ETR) measures do not provide information on the level or distribution of marginal effective tax rates thought to influence household behaviour. They also do not capture differences in average ETRs facing different population sub-groups. I use EUROMOD, an EUwide tax-benefit model, to derive distributions of average and marginal ETR measures for fourteen countries. Results for each country show how many and which types of individuals face different ETR levels. I consider effective tax burdens on labour income as well as the marginal tax rates faced by working men and women. Results are broken down to isolate the influence of income taxes, social contributions and various types of social benefits ...

Social Issues/Migration/Health --- European Union

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International comparisons of minimum-wage levels have largely focused on the gross value of minimum wages, ignoring the effects of taxation on both labour costs and the net income of employees. This paper presents estimates of the tax burdens facing minimum-wage workers. These are used as a basis for cross-country comparisons of the net earnings of these workers as well as the cost of employing them. In addition, results show the evolution of net incomes and labour costs during the 2000-2005 period and the relative importance of minimum-wage adjustments and...

Social Issues/Migration/Health

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Macro-based effective tax rate (ETR) measures do not provide information on the level or distribution of marginal effective tax rates thought to influence household behaviour. They also do not capture differences in average ETRs facing different population sub-groups. I use EUROMOD, an EUwide tax-benefit model, to derive distributions of average and marginal ETR measures for fourteen countries. Results for each country show how many and which types of individuals face different ETR levels. I consider effective tax burdens on labour income as well as the marginal tax rates faced by working men and women. Results are broken down to isolate the influence of income taxes, social contributions and various types of social benefits ...

Social Issues/Migration/Health --- European Union

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Working-age individuals and their families have experienced increases in relative income poverty before the Great Recession (GR), and they have also seen significant income losses since the beginning of the downturn in 2007/8. This paper examines the effects of benefit and tax reforms on the distribution of incomes of non-elderly individuals in Europe and in the United States both before and after the GR. We aim to place recent policy responses in context of both the broader trends in redistribution patterns observed since the 1980s, and the immediate crisis-related challenges, including a much greater need for government support, and large and rapidly growing government debt. Analysis of historical household income data confirms the common finding that redistribution reduces income inequalities by much less in the US than in much of Europe. Since more redistributive tax-transfer systems tend to be more effective as a backstop to widening earnings gaps, redistribution in the US was also less effective at offsetting the substantial increase in the market-income inequality in the 2-3 decades leading up to the GR. Focussing on more recent policy changes, we then calculate income gains and losses that can be attributed to reforms shortly before and after the GR at different points in the earnings spectrum. The results show that a combination of discretionary and automatic policy changes in the US have significantly narrowed the pre-GR gap between the equalising capacities of US and European redistribution measures, and between their abilities to cushion the effects of economic shocks on household income. We argue, however, that this is unlikely to signify any longer-term convergence, and that Europe/US comparisons need to go beyond the common focus on differences in redistribution levels. In our view, an equally important question is how well redistribution measures respond and adapt to evolving social and fiscal challenges at different points in the economic cycle.

Social Issues/Migration/Health --- European Union --- United States

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We use a range of data sources to assess if, and to what extent, government redistribution policies have slowed or accelerated the trend towards greater income disparities in the past 20-25 years. In most countries, inequality among “non-elderly” households has widened during most phases of the economic cycle and any episodes of narrowing income differentials have usually not lasted long enough to close the gap between high and low incomes that had opened up previously. With progressive redistribution systems in place, greater inequality automatically leads to more redistribution, even if no policy action is taken. We find that, in the context of rising market-income inequality, tax-benefit systems have indeed become more redistributive since the 1980s but that this did not stop income inequality from rising: market-income inequality grew by twice as much as redistribution. The redistributive strength of tax-benefit systems weakened in many countries particularly in the most recent decade. While growing market-income disparities were the main driver of inequality trends between the mid-1980s and mid-1990s, reduced redistribution was often the main driver in the ten years that followed. Benefits had a much stronger impact on inequality than social contributions or taxes, despite the much bigger aggregate size of direct taxes. As a result, redistribution policies were often less successful at counteracting growing income gaps at the bottom in the top half of the income distribution.

Employment --- Social Issues/Migration/Health