Why Inequality Matters
The CCPA have posted to their web site Armine Yalnizyan’s excellent presentation to last week’s CLC Convention: http://www.policyalternatives.ca/Reports/2008/06/ReportsStudies1900/index.cfm
Read moreAuthor: Andrew Jackson
Why Is Low Paid Work so Rare in Denmark?
As highlighted in the most recent version of the OECD Jobs Study, Denmark has recently managed to combine a very egalitarian distribution of wages and incomes with excellent employment and economic performance. The Danish “flexicurity†model gives the great majority of workers decent wages and working conditions, achieved though very high levels of unionization, very high unemployment benefits as a […]
Read moreLabour Policies and the Wage Gap
A fine editorial from Marjorie Cohen in today’s Vancouver Sun on the close link between labour policies and wage inequality. http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/editorial/story.html?id=4952dab6-b337-42b9-b872-5b338ef3f212&k=85286&p=2
Read moreSources of Rising Inequality in the US
An interesting paper: Controversies about the Rise of American Inequality: A Survey by Robert J. Gordon and Ian Dew-Becker. http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~idew/papers/BPEA_final_ineq.pdf Abstract This paper provides a comprehensive survey on six aspects of rising inequality: changes in laborÂfs share, inequality at the bottom, inequality at the top, labor mobility, inequality in consumption as contrasted to inequality of income, and international differences in […]
Read moreLabour’s Agenda
http://canadianlabour.ca/index.php/policy_papers I commend to your attention the policy papers which will be presented for discussion and debate at the CLC Convention, which convenes the week after next in Toronto. Progressive economists Mike McCracken and Armine Yalnizyan will help kick-off discussion on the Good Jobs and Growing Gap papers respectively. Though neither they nor the progressive economics community had a direct […]
Read moreUnions and Low Wage Workers in the US
Unionization Substantially Increases the Wages of Low-Wage Workers “While all workers benefit from union membership, low-wage workers see largest gains” For Immediate Release: May 15, 2008 Contact: Alan Barber, (202) 293-5380 x115 WASHINGTON, DC: After decades of disappointing wage growth for many American workers, a new report from the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) shows that unionization significantly […]
Read moreInequality and Well- Being
With credit to Edward Sussex who sends this summary ” This UNDP-IPC paper concludes that the real per capita income of the vast majority or the first eighty per cent of any nation (vast majority income – VMIpc), is of particular interest in comparing the income levels and income inequality of countries. It finds that average income measures are not […]
Read moreA Telling Anecdote on CEO Greed
Today’s excellent Globe Report on Business story on Potash Corp CEO William Doyle http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080508.wrpotash08/BNStory/energy/home scarcely requires additional commentary. But here goes – Apparently, his stock options are now worth $600 Million, up from $7 Million at the end of 2003. This huge windfall reflects soaring potash prices, up from $100 to $600 per tonne over more or less the same […]
Read moreMinimum Wage and Job Retention
In another interesting presentation on research in progress at the StatsCan conference, David Green and Pierre Brochu report that increases in minimum wages in Canada are associated with significantly longer job tenure for less educated, low job tenure workers – at least for the short-term period following the minimum wage increase. One possible implication is that employers benefit from higher […]
Read moreEffective Personal Income Tax Rates Lower than You Think
Brian Murply and Paul Roberts from StatsCan presented an interesting and potentially very useful and important study to this week’s StatsCan Socio-Economic performance. The effective personal income tax rate is typically computed – across various data sources – as total taxes paid as a ratio of total or taxable personal income. This ratio of two overall averages is accurate enough […]
Read moreInternational Trade Union Statement to G-8 Summit
The annual trade union statement to the G-8 was posted today at-Â Â http://www.tuac.org/e-docs/00/00/02/3F/document_news.phtml I think its a pretty good analysis of the economic conjuncture, and the needed policy response. The Executive Summary is pasted below: 1. The crucial issues on the G8 Summit agenda — climate change, development and Africa — remain central for the Global Labour movement which […]
Read moreFarewell Ivan Fellegi
I was recently appointed to the National Statistics Advisory Council and, in that capacity, was present on Thursday and Friday at the last Council meeting for which Ivan Fellegi will hold the post of Chief Statistician. Having served more than 20 years in that post, Fellegi is something of a legend in a town where the typical Deputy Minister serves […]
Read moreCanada’s Two Economies – Implications for Workers
What follows are my speaking notes for a recent McMaster Labour Studies/CAW educational event – a fair bit of it condensed from some of my earlier pieces but this update may be of interest…. I will talk about our two economies in two senses, growing class divisions, the growing gap between workers and the corporate elite and growing regional/sectoral divisions […]
Read moreTD Economics and CLC Research
I have spoken to TD Chief Economist Don Drummond who assures me, as I would assume, that neither he nor Beata Caranci were aware that material had been taken without citation from the CLC studies. The version of the TD study on the web will be revised to add an appropriate citation.
Read moreIs $1 Trillion a Big Number?
Well, it does take one’s breath away that the IMF now estimates that the financial crisis will result in $1 trillion in losses, about four times the total booked as losses to date by large financial institutions. I’m not entirely assure of the appropriate denominator to judge the percentage impact of this crisis on total financial system assets, but global […]
Read moreWhat Happened to the $54 Billion EI Surplus?
CLC Statement on the Canada Employment Insurance Financing Board The 2008 Budget Implementation Bill (C-50) creates – through Part 7, the Canada Employment Insurance Financing Board Act – a new, independent crown corporation, the Canada Employment Insurance Financing Board (CEIFB). The key functions of the new corporation and Board are to manage a separate Employment Insurance (EI) reserve fund, and […]
Read moreEmployment Insurance and Severance Pay
There is a very specific set of issues for displaced workers arising from the treatment of severance pay, which represents compensation for involuntary job loss in recognition of the very real costs incurred by the worker. Under the current Employment Insurance system, a worker who is laid-off does not normally receive a regular EI benefit cheque until such time as […]
Read moreProblems of Africa
I have just ordered what sounds like an excellent new book from an old friend and former colleague, Gerry Caplan. Review from AfricaFiles follows: AfricaFiles Title: The betrayal of Africa Author: Gerald Caplan Category: Africa General Date: 4/5/2008 Source: Groundwood Books Source Website: http://www.groundwoodbooks.com Summary & Comment: “There is a widespread assumption among rich countries that Africa is the problem […]
Read moreThe Last Recession
Here’s a nice piece by John Stapleton published by the CCPA – pointing out that most past downturns have seen improvements to social programs, rather than the cuts imposed last time around in the late 80s early 90s. Â http://www.policyalternatives.ca/documents/Ontario_Office_Pubs/2008/Last_Recession_Spook.pdf
Read moreThe Jobs Numbers for March
I’m struck by the extent to which the media stuck to the story of a dismal US economy/resilient Canadian economy in reporting on Friday’s labour force numbers. See eg the Saturday Globe and Mail report. In fact, Quebec and Ontario combined lost 47,000 full-time jobs in March, and the Maritime provinces also showed signs of growing weakness. Almost all of […]
Read moreConfronting Inequality North and South, Post Bush
I’ve pasted in below my contribution to the latest issue of Canada Watch, edited by my old friend Danny Drache of the Robarts Centre for Canadian Studies at the University of Toronto. It’s part of a special issue on what Deep Integration of North America could look like with George W. Bush out of the way. Here’s the link to […]
Read moreA Note on Carbon Tariffs
Last week I attended a very useful workshop on climate change and green jobs bringing together about 25 people from labour and environmental ngos, in a generally successful attempt to find common ground around climate change policies. I think there was real momentum around the centrality of “green job” creation to moving the climate change agenda forward. There was less […]
Read moreReport From an Unfolding Crisis, or What I Learned in Washington.
I was in Washington last week for meetings of economists from central trade union bodies, mainly from the OECD countries. While the main purpose of the meetings was to draft the annual union statement to the upcoming G-8 summit in Japan, we had a full day of meetings with researchers and senior officials from the International Monetary Fund, and also […]
Read moreToday’s Job Numbers
There is good news today, but ample reason for caution looking ahead Canada’s job market continues to surprise. Despite a strong drop in economic growth in late 2007 and recognition this week from the Bank of Canada that a US downturn will spill over into Canada, employment rose by 43,000 last month and the unemployment rate held steady at 5.8%. […]
Read moreWomen – Still a Long Way from Economic Equality
 The CLC today released – on the eve of International Women’s Day – a major report on women and economic equality.  I’ll be presenting it at the PEF meetings in June. The report flags a question which is not posed often or clearly enough – why has the pay (and wider opportunity) gap between women and men stopped closing over […]
Read moreBank of Canada Still Playing Catch-Up
The good news is that the Bank of Canada today matched the maximum market expectation of them, a half point cut in the target for the overnight rate. They even suggested that further interest rate cuts are in store. “Further monetary stimulus is likely to be required in the near term to keep aggregate supply and demand in balance and […]
Read moreStill More on Tax Free Savings
I’ve posted below some interesting comments from Richard Shillington, a senior associate at Informetrica Ltd – who among many other accomplishments has drawn attention to very high effective tax rates on low income Canadians, and the failure of many programs to reflect the realities of life in low income. I think Richard advances a good alternative solution to a real […]
Read moreSubsidizing Carbon Capture and Storage
The federal Budget kicked in a rather hefty $240 Million subsidy to a proposed new SaskPower coal-fired power plant that will demonstrate CCS technology. Perhaps this is a good thing which should be welcomed – climate change activists sound vaguely impressed – but I wonder if we should be so heavily subsidizing CCS, as opposed to forcing it on power […]
Read moreThe “New” Employment Insurance Fund
The government has announced in the Budget that it is creating a new, independent Crown Corporation, the Canada Employment Insurance Financing Board (CEIFB) to manage a separate EI bank account, and to set premiums from 2009 on. This responds to employer concerns re paying EI premiums which are “too high” as opposed to worker concerns over access to and the […]
Read moreLink to CLC Budget Analysis
http://canadianlabour.ca/index.php/budget_analysis/1339
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