Would a Carbon Tax Hurt the Poor and the Middle Class? (VIDEO)

This conversation was recorded on August 1, 2019.

What would be the distributional effects of a carbon tax? Gilbert Metcalf (Tufts) and Michael Klein, Executive Editor of EconoFact discuss new research which shows that, faced with a carbon tax, companies are unlikely to pass the resulting cost increases entirely onto consumers; and a carbon tax is therefore likely to impact owners of capital more than workers. They also highlight that transfers like social security, which go predominantly to the poor, are indexed to inflation, insulating recipients from price increases. Finally, if revenue generated from a carbon tax is distributed equally to U.S. residents, the poor will, on average, get back more than what they end up paying as a carbon tax.

Metcalf and Klein also discuss and the role of wind, solar and storage technology in our energy future.