Proposition 7 in 1982 was intended to prohibit government from profiting from inflation at the expense of the taxpayer. During inflationary times, salaries that were raised merely to keep up with inflation — meaning no real income increase for the worker — forced people into higher tax brackets. Government got more taxes because of this inflation; taxpayers had smaller spending power. Howard Jarvis’s Proposition 7 changed that. Proposition 7 allowed the tax brackets to increase with inflation so that taxpayers would be no worse off if they received a raise to match inflation.
