Fighting poverty assessing the effect of a guaranteed minimum income proposals in Québec

Summary: This paper analyzes the impact of a recent proposal made by Quebec's Comité consultatif de lutte contre la pauvreté et l'exclusion sociale to guarantee every individual an income equivalent to 80% of Statistics Canada's Market Basket Measure. Workers with earnings at least equivalent to 16 weekly hours paid at the minimum wage would be entitled to 100% of the MBM. These proposals are the focus of the paper because the had there potential to become official policy. We also investigate the impact of three alternative proposals: 1) A change in the cut-off from 16 to 30 hours; 2) a guaranteed income equivalent to 100% of the MBM; 3) A 3 dollar an hour conditional wage subsidy.