Statistics Canada reported today that private and public investment intentions are up by 1.4% for 2014, even weaker than Canada’s investment growth of 1.5% in 2013. Private-sector investment intentions are only 1.3% higher this year, a far cry from the growth of after-tax corporate profits. Yesterday, Statistics Canada reported that net profits were 17.3% higher in the fourth quarter of […]
Read moreAll the recent talk about the Canada’s shrinking middle class and rising income inequality got me thinking that it might be a good time to take a fresh look at a somewhat neglected economic concept: the labour share of income. The labour share of income hopes to measure the portion of the economic pie going to workers. The inverse of […]
Read moreHere is a guest post from Paul Pugh, from Thunder Bay, who provided us a couple of years ago with some interesting and encouraging data about Uruguay’s incremental successes in building a more inclusive, sustainable economic and social model. In light of The Economist’s surprising choice of Uruguay as its first-ever “country of the year,” we asked Paul to reprise his commentary. […]
Read moreYesterday I tweeted this: <blink> Gap will raise minimum hourly pay Walmart “looking” at support of min wage raise In honour of the momentum, I am posting the piece I wrote for Economy Lab a while back, and including the numbers that drive the chart that attracted quite a lot of attention. There is a good reason why the minimum […]
Read moreI posted this on CCPA’s BC Policy Note blog but others across Canada should pay attention to BC’s quest for LNG gold. I’d also recommend this comparison of the Quebec and BC budgets by Michal Rozworski, which highlights the stubborn emphasis on natural resource development in both budgets. It’s like the tax cut culture has so permeated Canadian politics that […]
Read moreThere were two announcements this week around E.I. – both framed as “being more responsive to local labour market conditions”. What that really means is that in the three territories and Prince Edward Island, access to E.I. will become more difficult in urban areas. Employment Insurance is divided into 58 separate economic regions, and access to benefits, as well as […]
Read moreThe Progressive Economics Forum is pleased to announce Lars Osberg as the Winner of the 2014 Galbraith Prize in Economics. Our selection committee included past winners Mel Watkins, John Loxley and Mike McCracken, plus Lana Payne and Linda McQuaig. Lars has accepted the Prize and will deliver the Galbraith Lecture at the Canadian Economics Association meetings in Vancouver, BC on […]
Read moreThis morning I gave a presentation to a church group in Ottawa on affordable housing and homelessness. My slides can be downloaded here. Points I raised in the presentation include the following: -Though government provides subsidies to some low-income households for housing, it is important to be mindful of the considerable funding available for Canadian homeowners as well (including for […]
Read moreThis blog’s unofficial slogan has been “Tomorrow’s conventional wisdom, today.†After this week’s Conservative backpedaling on income splitting, we may need to change it to “Today’s conventional wisdom, seven years ago.†Or we could just stick with “You read it here first.†My first-ever blog post, Income Splitting Redux, argued that this tax policy “would benefit an affluent minority at the […]
Read moreRecessions are always harder on young workers, but we are nearly five years out from the end of the last recession and there is still no recovery in sight for young workers. The paid internships announced in this budget (some of which is previously announced spending) will only reach a maximum of 2,500 individuals per year, less than 0.5% (half […]
Read moreHere’s the first section of the budget summary and analysis I’ve prepared for CUPE. The full version is on-line on CUPE’s website at http://cupe.ca/economics/missing-action-federal-budget-2014 together with CUPE’s press release at: http://cupe.ca/economics/federal-budget-2014-help-hurt-canadian Missing In Action: Federal Budget 2014 CUPE Federal Budget 2014 Summary and Response  Conservatives ignore pressing economic needs with a Do-little budget Using more of their doublespeak, the Harper […]
Read moreUPDATE (Feb. 12): Carol Goar reports this statement on page A17 of today’s Toronto Star. To add your signature to it, please e-mail your name, title and institution to Mario Seccareccia at mseccare@uottawa.ca Statement by 70 Canadian Economists Against Austerity We, the undersigned, strongly urge the federal government to stop implementing fiscal austerity measures just to achieve its political goal […]
Read moreThe following commentary on yesterday’s job numbers is quoted in today’s National Post (page FP4): The Olympic motto may be “Faster, Higher, Stronger,†but Canada’s employment growth is slower, lower and weaker going into the winter games. Of the 29,000 Canadians who supposedly gained employment in January, 28,000 reported being self-employed. Only 1,000 found jobs paid by an employer. While […]
Read moreMy union Unifor is currently undertaking an important “Rights at Work” campaign, which involves a national tour of meetings with our officers and local leaders and stewards, followed by a membership canvass and community outreach effort, all aimed at beating back the current attack on fundamental labour rights coming from conservatives at all levels in Canada.Â
Read moreThis afternoon I gave a presentation to Professor Ted Jackson’s graduate seminar course on higher education, taught in Carleton University’s School of Public Policy and Administration. Â The link to my slide deck, titled “The Political Economy of Post-Secondary Education in Canada,” can be found here. Points I raised in the presentation include the following: -Tuition fees have been rising in […]
Read moreNumbers season is over but good inequality data is still missing. January sees us regularly bombarded with a whole range of economic statistics about the previous year. GDP growth: likely 1.7%, low but looking brighter for next year. Unemployment: 7.2%, low but lots of workers leaving the job market altogether as the employment rate stagnates. Inflation: 1.2%, low but deflation […]
Read moreThis is quite interesting. If you read the short section from the recent IMF Staff Report on Canada under point 16, it is quite clear that the IMF Staff think that, with growth significantly under potential, the federal Budget should be brought back to balance more slowly than is now the plan. It strikes me as unusual that they flag […]
Read moreThe hype on LNG has grown to staggering proportions. I have not had much time to debunk all of the government’s grotesque exaggerations and outright falsehoods. But Christy Clark’s claim that BC is “doing the world a favour” by exporting LNG to Asia made me write this oped, which got picked up in today’s Vancouver Sun: Is LNG B.C.’s big favour? It’s […]
Read moreToday’s fourth-quarter report indicates that PotashCorp paid “provincial mining and other taxes†of $194 million on potash sales of $3 billion in 2013. In other words, Saskatchewan’s resource surcharge and potash production tax amounted to just 6.5% of the value of potash sold. Adding the basic Crown royalty (which PotashCorp includes in “cost of goods soldâ€) and subtracting New Brunswick […]
Read moreJim Stanford recently pointed out that many of the conservative economists who had defended the overvalued loonie have quickly shifted to applauding its depreciation. The Government of Saskatchewan may be making a similar conversion on the road to Damascus. When federal NDP leader Tom Mulcair expressed concern about Dutch disease, premier Brad Wall denied that the high exchange rate was […]
Read moreThe past 18 months have seen real wages increase in Canada. (Yes, I double-checked.) Indeed, real wages have gone through two distinct phases of growth since the financial crisis hit the global economy in 2007. This may be surprising as we have been accustomed to hearing about the stagnation of real wages and the “decoupling†of wages from productivity gains […]
Read moreAnother column by Gwyn Morgan in the Globe and Mail and another case of a 0.1 percenter telling the rest of us to “Do as I say, not as I do.” This time, it’s Gwyn recycling trash from the CFIB and Fraser Institute to claim defined benefit pensions for public sector workers are too generous and are simply unaffordable, and […]
Read moreThe details of the Progressive Economics Forum’s 2014 Student Essay Contest are now online. The submission deadline is May 5. Please put up this poster to promote the contest.
Read moreThe debate over increasing the minimium wage, so clearly necessary to lift working incomes above the poverty line (not to mention boost consumer spending power), is heating up in many provinces. Predictably, free-market theorists are pushng back (as they have since the concept of minimum wages was first invented over a century ago). Here is a useful summary of recent […]
Read moreThe long-overdue depreciation of Canada’s currency is gathering steam. The dollar lost 8 cents against its U.S. counterpart, in fits and starts, over 2013. It’s lost another 2 cents since the start of 2014, and negative sentiment about the currency is accumulating among financial analysts and traders. Indeed, once the expectation that the loonie will fall becomes entrenched among enough […]
Read moreTim Hudak is sounding — and looking — even more like Scott Walker these days. The Ontario Conservative leader’s pledge to create one million new jobs sounds like a direct rip-off of Wisconsin governor Scott Walker’s promise to create 250,000 new jobs in his four year term.  Only the state, er province and numbers are different. And how is the […]
Read moreThe PEF’s biannual John Kenneth Galbraith Prize in Economics will be awarded this summer for the fourth time. This is a call for nominations from PEF members in good standing. If you would like to nominate someone please email me at galbraith@progressive-economics.ca with a couple paragraphs to support your nomination (300 words max). Nominations will close February 2. The Galbraith Prize is only awarded […]
Read moreThe December jobs report was a spectacular finish (not in a good way) to a rather discouraging year for the Canadian labour market. When the dust had settled, it turned out that employment growth averaged 8,500 per month in 2013, compared with 25,900 in 2012. This anaemic job growth was not enough to keep up with the growth in the labour force, as on average, 10,500 new jobseekers entered the […]
Read moreCanadian economic commentators often worship small business as the supposed source of economic dynamism and growth. This cult of small business has greatly influenced public policy, with federal and provincial governments giving huge tax preferences to small corporations. But new Statistics Canada research finds: “The gap between the levels of labour productivity in Canada and the United States is due […]
Read moreThere was a spate of media stories recently on a US report finding that increased employment of seniors has no negative impacts at all on young people also seeking work. In fact, the study by leading US economist Alicia Munnell, looking mainly at the experience of US states, did say that the so-called “lump of labour†fallacy may be true […]
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