... that's a "fer peice" from your prediction of "+/- 5%".
PRICES will indeed rise (much more than your 5% prediction. DISPOSABLE INCOME might or might NOT rise depending on who you are. AGGREGATE PURCHASING POWER will remain initially unchanged (for a revenue neutral program) BUT ...
... INDIVIDUAL purchasing power WILL VARY SUBSTANTIALLY.
No kidding.
But in order to make your point, you had to choose a case where someone is living off a practically untaxed, relatively high fixed income. The only way I can see that happening is from tax-deferred investments, so the whole mantra of "double-taxing poor seniors' savings" doesn't work here.
For someone living on a low or moderate fixed income, the effective NRST tax rate is much lower than the marginal rate (note that my example put the NRST at a disadvantage by comparing it as a marginal rate to the icnome/payroll tax effective rate), and that correspondingly skews the numbers so that while prices go up, there was considerably more money in the spender's pocket to start with.
"The problem with such anecdotal, single situation analysis, is that it does not apply to the breadth of individual circumstances. "
If you really believe that then why do you turn right around and offer up one yourself in the same post???
"PRICES will indeed rise (much more than your 5% prediction. DISPOSABLE INCOME might or might NOT rise depending on who you are. AGGREGATE PURCHASING POWER will remain initially unchanged (for a revenue neutral program) "
Perhaps in your view prices will rise "much more" than 5%, but we've yet to see any definitive numeric proof of any such claim. In the case of the two primary papers discussed about the FairTax by opponents - the Jorgenson analysis and the Kotlikoff/Suffolk U analysis - neither attempts any such definitive calculation. One economist (Jorgenson) assumes that wages will drop by the income tax amount (and prices thereby a corresponding amount) in the approximate range of 22-24%. The other economist (Kotlikoff) makes an opposite assumption that wages remain the same and prices increase by about the amount of the FairTax.
Both choices are assumptions, however, and both cannot be right at the same time so that most likely means that the actual path would be someplace in between.
If you have some definitively derived calculations, though, jump right up and throw out your formulas.
It really is not prices that are the significant thing, though, but purchasing power (disposable personal income if you prefer) that is the important item since that's where "the rubber meets the road". There have been many examples on these threads of comparative purchasing power examples of the same taxpayer's income under the income tax and the FairTax to see which is more beneficial. In almost every case it is the FairTax that benefits taxpayers most - and it also will benefit the overall economy more as well. Emphasing "price" to the exclusion of the real world purchasing power certainly misses the point.