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Carolyne Wang

To end poverty, guarantee everyone in Canada $20,000 a year. But are you willing to tru... - 2 views

www.theglobeandmail.com/...singlepage

Income Inequality Poverty Guaranteed Annual Income

shared by Carolyne Wang on 03 Jun 11 - No Cached
  • The wage gap continues to grow, and one in 10 Canadians still struggles below the low-income line.
  • The idea of giving money to the poor without strings is not new. It melds altruism and libertarianism, saying both that the best way to fight poverty is to put cash in poor people's pockets and that people can make their own choices better than bureaucrats can. As a result, it can find support in theory from both left and right.
  • It has been tested with success in other countries, and now it has re-entered the Canadian political conversation.
  • ...15 more annotations...
  • House of Commons committee on poverty released a report proposing a guaranteed basic income for Canadians with disabilities, on the model already available to seniors. The Senate released a similar report this spring calling for a study of how it would work for all low-income Canadians.
  • Within a year, working with counsellors who helped them with their plans and purchases, nine of the 15 participants were moving to some form of housing. The results were not perfect: A couple of people moved back out of housing again, and at least one was imprisoned. But most spent far less than the money available to them, mostly on clothing, food and rent. On the other hand, one person who chose to remain on the street asked for music lessons, and that was all right too.
  • Economists continue to bounce the idea around. Two years ago, Canadian researchers started their own chapter of the Basic Income Earth Network (a group founded in Belgium in 1986) to co-ordinate an ongoing discussion. Some say it might actually accomplish what political rhetoric has been promising for years: the eradication of poverty.
  • In Britain, an experiment was recently conducted with a small group of people who had been living on the streets for more than five years. They were given a budget that they could spend however they wished. The idea was to see whether the “personalized budgets” Britain gives to seniors and people with disabilities to pay for care (which include some conditions) would work for the very poor as well.
  • In Quebec, a government task force went further, recommending a minimum guaranteed income starting at $12,000 for everyone in the province.
  • The idea of a guaranteed annual income has been tested before in Canada – in the mid-1970s, in Dauphin, Man., a farming town with then about 10,000 residents. In the only experiment of its kind in North America, every household in Dauphin was given access to a guaranteed annual budget, subject to their income level. For a family of five, payments equalled about $18,000 a year in today's dollars. Politicians primarily wanted to see if people would stop working. While the project was pre-empted by a change in government, a second look by researchers has found that there was only a slight decline in work – mostly among mothers, who chose to stay home with their children, and teenaged boys, who stayed in school longer.
  • “Very often, services are about getting people off the streets, come what may,” says Joe Batty, who managed the program. “This is about normalizing people.” The program was considered so successful, he says, that the city of London is now providing financial support to expand it.
  • Evelyn Forget, a researcher in medicine at the University of Manitoba, reports that Dauphin also experienced a 10-per-cent drop in hospital admissions and fewer doctor visits, especially for mental-health issues.
  • But a guaranteed-annual-income program would be expensive. In developing nations, a small amount of money can bring about big changes. In a country like Canada, the basic income needed to pull everyone out of poverty would have to be larger, balanced against higher taxes.
  • cost analysis of the Quebec proposal estimated it could run the province as much as $2-billion, including the cost in lost taxes if minimum-wage workers did the math and left those jobs.
  • Other experts argue that poverty reduction needs to be tailored to individual circumstances, especially in cases involving mental health and addiction.
  • Conservative Senator Hugh Segal, one of the more vocal proponents of no-strings-attached aid for the poor, points out that the guaranteed-income program for seniors has greatly reduced poverty, especially among women. “There's a bias that when given the chance people will be lazy,” he says. “That's not my sense of reality.” Mr. Segal argues that giving money with no conditions removes the stigma and shame around poverty, allowing people to focus instead on how to improve their lot.
  • Requiring the poor to prove continually that they are deserving of assistance or threatening to pull help away without notice only discourages the risk-taking and confidence required to get out of poverty.
  • “If you think of the core premise of charity, it is not to treat people as lesser,” Mr. Segal says. “[It] is to give people a leg-up so they can have some measure of independence and can make some of their own choices.”
  • To do that effectively, he argues, we need to let them decide the steps they take to get there. Or – as Ms. Gray in Victoria puts it, saying she would go back to school for more training if she could count on covering rent and daycare – give some autonomy back to “people who are trying to be somebody in this world.”
Carolyne Wang

How paying people's way out of poverty can help us all - The Globe and Mail - 0 views

www.theglobeandmail.com/...singlepage

Income Inequality Tax Cuts Homelessness Set Annual Income Unemployment

shared by Carolyne Wang on 02 Jun 11 - No Cached
  • there’s an increasing awareness, among even the country’s most wealthy, that poverty reaches beyond the tables of the hungry and digs into their own pocketbooks
  • When people are poor, out of work or homeless, it hurts the bottom line of all Canadians. And as the country struggles to maintain a shaky recovery amid growing global economic uncertainty, that’s not a hit they can afford to take.
  • If Ottawa and the provinces fail to make this a priority, Tory Senator Hugh Segal predicts, “over time, we will begin to run out of the money that we need to deal with the demographic bulge because it will be consumed in the health care requirements of the poor, which will increase. It will be consumed in the costs of the illiteracy and unemployment which relate to poverty. ... And it'll be unsustainable.”
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  • It’s already on the radar of some provinces: One of Christy Clark’s first actions as B.C. Premier was to raise the province’s minimum wage for the first time in a decade and offer a tax cut for low-income families. Ontario has launched a sweeping review of social assistance programs that Community and Social Services Minister Madeleine Meilleur has admitted are failing the province’s neediest.
  • Despite Canada’s reputation for a strong social safety net, the country is becoming economically polarized. And the decades-old dominant economic dogma that growing wealth among society’s highest earners would trickle down to those less fortunate is being challenged by an alternative approach: Eliminate crushing poverty among the lowest earners, and wealth will trickle up.
  • The ranks of the working poor have swelled as minimum wages fail to keep pace with rising costs and social assistance levels drop.
  • The recession widened the chasm, and a subsequent recovery hasn’t closed it.
  • On paper, almost as many jobs have been added as were lost during the financial crisis. But they offer fewer hours and less pay – and some of the hardest-hit sectors aren’t coming back.
  • Food bank use hit a record high in 2010. Tellingly, more of the people using those food banks have jobs – they just don’t make enough to pay the bills or feed their families.
  • As the incomes of the country’s top earners have risen, the incomes of Canada’s lower- and middle-income earners have stagnated.
  • Tony Masciotra is diversifying himself. The Argentine-Canadian father of two went back to school immediately after being laid off from his tool and die job at Ford Motor Co. in Windsor three years ago.
  • “I have records of over 100 jobs I have applied for,” he said. “I have looked really hard. ... But I haven’t been able to get a job yet.
  • Mr. Masciotra is part of a growing group of skilled labourers on the brink. The métiers in which they’ve worked for years are no longer economically viable: Many well-paying blue-collar jobs are being replaced by minimum-wage, service-sector ones. And that’s causing significant shifts on both sides of the border, notes MIT economist David Autor.
  • It gets more complicated, and more economically detrimental, if the people who’ve lost jobs aren’t the ones being hired to new ones.
  • They enter what Robin Somerville of the Centre for Spatial Economics calls “structural unemployment.” And if they leave the workforce entirely, they fall off the radar of unemployment stats: The numbers look better precisely because they’re worse.
  • The drop is even more significant because more Canadians are putting off retirement. That should mean more people in the workforce. But it doesn’t: So many younger workers are dropping out entirely that they outweigh the older ones sticking around longer.
  • “If you’re losing opportunities in some areas, and you’re not replacing them with opportunities of equal or greater value, then the overall level of income in the economy is reduced. And the ability of people to go out and buy goods and services is reduced.”
  • Homelessness costs taxpayers money – in both foregone wealth and social service spending.
  • Some see a solution in a 40-year-old experiment: In the 1970s, Manitoba wanted to see what would happen if it guaranteed poor people in a few communities a set annual income.
  • The philosophy behind this is simple: People are more likely to stay in school, out of emergency rooms and out of jail; they contribute to the economy through their purchases; they’re more likely to move eventually above the poverty line and pay taxes.
  • The irony is that Canada already scores high compared to other OECD countries when it comes to helping the elderly. Where it falls short is where it matters: The working-age poor – the ones who should be contributing to the economy.
  • $134,000 Estimated amount for emergency shelter, emergency hospital care, law enforcement and other social services for one homeless person in Calgary, for one year
  • $34,000 Estimated cost to proide supportive housing for one person in Calgary, for one year
  • $12,555 Average cost of hospital stay for non-homeless patient at St. Michael's Hospital in Toronto
  • $15,114 Average cost of hospital stay for homeless patient at St. Michael's Hospital in Toronto
Dmitri Tkachenko

Loonie rises as greenback slips back - The Globe and Mail - 0 views

www.theglobeandmail.com/...article2038052

Canadian currency Home buyers Income and spending

shared by Dmitri Tkachenko on 30 May 11 - No Cached
  • Dmitri Tkachenko on 30 May 11
     
    "The Canadian dollar gained 0.14 of a cent to $1.0232 (U.S.).The Canadian currency has drifted lower for the past four weeks, partly on signs of further weakness in the U.S. economy. Data from the U.S. Commerce Department, released Thursday, showed that the economy grew at a tepid annual rate of 1.8 per cent in the first quarter, lower than many economists expected. Higher prices for gasoline and weak consumer spending have held back the economy. The Labour Department also said more people applied for unemployment benefits last week. On Friday, the Commerce Department said that both personal income and spending rose 0.4 per cent in April, in line with what economists expected. But the rise in spending was the smallest in three months. Another report showed that the number of people who signed contracts to buy homes in April plunged 26.5 per cent from a year earlier."
Noah Schafer

Jobless rate, global uncertainty to test Tories' economic strategy - thestar.com - 0 views

www.thestar.com/...-test-tories-economic-strategy

Canada USA Corprate tax stimulus governmentspending

shared by Noah Schafer on 05 Jun 11 - No Cached
  • The new Conservative government’s business-friendly economic strategy will be tested by uncertain global conditions and a stubbornly high jobless rate in Canada. One of the first items on Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s agenda when Parliament re
  • The new Conservative government’s business-friendly economic strategy will be tested by uncertain global conditions and a stubbornly high jobless rate in Canada.
  • n February, Canada’s output sank by 0.2 per cent, the worst monthly performance since May 2009.
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  • One of the first items on Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s agenda when Parliament returns will be reintroduction of a $278 billion budget that includes a sprinkling of social and economic spending and a plan to slay the budget deficit in several years. And the government will continue with a $6 billion corporate income tax cut.
  • “The risks still lie outside the Canadian border, which as we’re well aware can have a spillover effect on Canada,” said Royal Bank chief economist Craig Wright.
  • “We’re seeing continued uncertainty and concerns still with respect to the Eurozone and where it’s headed,” he said. Uncertainty on economic growth is also being fanned by volatile energy markets and the questionable U.S. business rebound, Wright said.
  • Prospects for Canada are also complicated by expectations that spending by debt-burdened consumers could slow in 2011 and by the shut-off of the Conservatives’ two-year, $47 billion emergency stimulus program.
  • With government spending slowing, the Conservatives have staked a great deal on their view that the business community will pick up the slack and stimulate the economy with expansion-minded investments.
  • Besides phasing in corporate income tax cuts worth $14 billion by 2012, the Conservatives in recent years have provided a wide range of investment incentives for business, including easing taxes on small business and manufacturers. In all, tax cuts for business by the Conservatives total an estimated $60 billion by 2013.
  • both Flaherty and Bank of Canada Governor Mark Carney have pointedly talked about the urgent need for more spending on machinery and equipment by companies.
  • But many are not convinced, with some Canadians saying the government would be smarter to tie tax incentives directly to company investments to ensure that corporations don’t just pocket the extra profits.
  • Speaking of corporate tax cuts, Canadian Association of Social Workers spokesperson Fred Phelps said it would be one thing “if corporations turned around and invested those funds into the economy.” But he said that hasn’t been happening in recent years. “What really has driven us out of the recession,” he said, “is spending by households and government, not business.”
Steven Iarusci

Report cautions that over-indebted consumers can't drive economy - 0 views

www.vancouversun.com/...story.html

economy consumer debt growth

shared by Steven Iarusci on 02 Jun 11 - No Cached
  • a rate hike may come in the fall
    • Steven Iarusci
      Steven Iarusci on 02 Jun 11
       
      Interest rates
  • the main message is that consumers cannot be the main engines of economic growth over the next couple of years,” the authors conclude. “Instead, the economy will have to rely on other sources of growth, such as exports and business investment.”
  • Canadians have “eased off the debt-accumulation throttle,”
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  • still net borrowers, meaning they borrow more than they save
  • consumer spending will not be the engine of economic growth in the coming quarters and the inevitable future rebalancing of monetary policy will be a shock to many households
  • some of the drop in household indebtedness is explained by strong income gains, not by debt repayment per se
  • sustainable personal growth is likely in a range of 4.0-4.5 per cent. Credit continues to grow at a pace that is two percentage points above that
  • the level of Canadian household debt — which in December officially surpassed those of our neighbours to the south — is unsustainable
  • total consumer debt load is reported to be about $1.5 trillion
  • Data released late last year suggested Canadians owed on average $112,000 — a figure that includes all kinds of debt, including mortgages — and a debt-to-income ratio of 150 per cent means they were spending $1,500 for every $1,000 in take-home pay
  • Factors that will moderate credit growth over the short term include spending fatigue, a soft landing in the housing market, stricter mortgage rules and Canadians preparing for the higher interest rates that are sure to come as the economy recovers.
naheekim

Housing prices to drop 25%, forecaster predicts - thestar.com - 2 views

www.thestar.com/...to-drop-25-over-next-few-years

Housing Prices Recession

shared by naheekim on 28 May 11 - No Cached
  • House prices in Canada will fall over the next several years by as much as 25 per cent, creating a massive impact on the economy and possibly pushing the country into recession, says a forecast
  • predicting house prices will fall by a cumulative 25 per cent over the next several years
  •  Madani says the effects on consumer spending and housing investment could be significant and perhaps strong enough to “push the economy into another recession
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  • “If house prices are to fall, there needs to be a mechanism — an excess of supply relative to demand,”
  • Last year, the Canadian Real Estate Association modified its forecasts at least four times. After initially predicting housing prices would increase in 2011, it now says prices will fall by 1.3 per cent — far below the eye-catching 25 per cent forecast by Capital Economics.
  • Financial agencies such as the Canadian Mortgage Housing Corporation, which provides mortgage loan insurance, could also be exposed to significant losses
  • The Capital Economics forecast is not the first to predict a bubble in the Canadian market. Gluskin Sheff & Associates chief economist David Rosenberg has also predicted a 25 per cent drop in Canadian housing prices, as has The Economist magazine.
  • As in the U.S., financial innovation and very low interest rates have allowed Canadian consumers to take on more debt, and house prices are high relative to income
  • However, consumers have remained complacent because low rates are keeping mortgage payments low.
  • The historical home price-to-income ratio is 3.5, but now it's hovering around the 5.5 mark, meaning average house prices are more than five times the income of workers
  • naheekim on 28 May 11
     
    The economists and forcasters are predicting that housing prices will decrease over the next several years by 25%.
Alejandro Enamorado

Regional inequality: Internal affairs | The Economist - 0 views

www.economist.com/18332880

regional inequality

shared by Alejandro Enamorado on 03 Jun 11 - No Cached
  • And the income gap between richer and poorer areas is likely to widen further as government-spending cuts disproportionately hurt less prosperous parts.
  • In several places regional disparities have worsened over time. Start with America. Between 2007 and 2009 real GDP per head in the five richest states actually rose by an average of 2%, but fell by 3% in the five poorest.
  • But studies suggest that differences in productivity are far more important than differences in joblessness in explaining regional income gaps. This implies that governments also need to focus on improving education and skills in poorer areas. In Mississippi only 19% of those aged 25 or over have a degree, compared with 36% in Connecticut or 48% in the District of Columbia.
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  • Indeed, the gap between richer and poorer regions is likely to widen in many countries as the public-spending axe falls. Nowhere will this effect be more striking than in Britain. Cities in the north and Wales are much more dependent on public-sector jobs and welfare benefits than cities in the south.
Linda Lei

A warning for Canadian consumers, household debt could spark 'made in Canada' recession... - 1 views

okotoksmortgages.com/...e-in-canada%E2%80%99-recession

consumer debt housing price

shared by Linda Lei on 03 Jun 11 - No Cached
  • “One scenario is that interest rates rise, house prices drop, and more people begin defaulting on their credit card debt and mortgage obligations. An equally worrying – and perhaps more likely scenario – is that interest rates go up a little, and more of people’s disposable income goes to repaying their debt, leading to a significant reduction in consumer spending. Since personal spending on consumer goods and services accounts for 58 per cent of the Canadian gross domestic product, this decrease would provoke a ‘made in Canada’ recession.”
  • Total household debt in Canada now tops $1.5-trillion, or three times the national debt, MIT said in a statement outlining the paper by Mr. Dunfield and his colleagues in the Action Canada fellowship. That means that while Mr. Flaherty is being fiscally responsible, many of us may not be following suit.
  • “Canada has also avoided the wide regional performance differences seen in the U.S., where states such as Nevada, California and Florida suffered significantly larger declines than the nation overall,” Mr. Goldin added. “In Canada, house prices in Calgary and Vancouver fell further than those across the nation, but the variance was relatively minor by comparison
Steven Iarusci

Consumer fatigue an ominous sign for economy - The Globe and Mail - 1 views

www.theglobeandmail.com/...article2039584

debt consumer ratio economy slow

shared by Steven Iarusci on 02 Jun 11 - No Cached
  • Consumers typically account for 60 per cent of the country’s gross domestic product, and rising living costs along with elevated debt levels suggest they won’t be much help this year
  • Gross domestic product expanded at an annualized 3.9 per cent in the first quarter, the fastest pace in a year, led by business investment and manufacturing, Statistics Canada said
  • that pace will be cut by almost half in the second quarter, while Finance Minister Jim Flaherty told reporters Monday he’s anticipating “more modest” growth in the rest of the year
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  • In the near term, households are under pressure as rising food and energy costs cut into their budgets
  • “I will never, never do that again. I want to have the money up front before I buy something, because I don’t want to get into that trouble again,” said Ms. Thornton
  • the household debt service ratio – debt payments to disposable income – jumped to a three-year high of 7.8 per cent from 7.2 per cent
  • Kim Thornton, for example, is one fatigued consumer. The mother of four says her family ran up about $50,000 in debt in prior years on credit card spending
  • In the longer term, high debt levels could restrain spending for years
  • Canadians are getting the message about whittling down debt, and that is translating into fewer purchases of discretionary goods
  • reduced hours and leaner wages – a legacy from the recession – mean many families have less money with which to service their debt, he added
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