Skip to main content

Home/ Economic Challenges Research/ Group items tagged Taxes

Rss Feed Group items tagged

Filter: All | Bookmarks | Topics Simple Middle
Kiruban Mahadeva

Canada 2011 Budget: Flaherty Budget Speech (Text) - Bloomberg - 1 views

www.bloomberg.com/...herty-budget-speech-text-.html

Government Spending Taxes Debt

shared by Kiruban Mahadeva on 03 Jun 11 - No Cached
  • The global economy is still fragile. The U.S. and our other trading partners are facing challenges. Compared to other countries, Canada's economy is performing very well-but our continued recovery is by no means assured. Many threats remain.
  • Securing our recovery from the global recession The Next Phase of Canada's Economic Action Plan is critically important
  • Now is not the time for instability. It would make it harder for Canadian businesses to plan and to expand. It would drive investment away to other countries. It would jeopardize the gains we have made.
  • ...18 more annotations...
  • We will keep taxes low. We will undertake additional targeted investments to support jobs and growth
  • massive tax increases
  • We will not give in to Opposition demands to impose
  • This reckless policy would lead to continuing deficits and higher taxes on all Canadians. It would stall our recovery, kill hundreds of thousands of jobs and set families back.
  • Sustained growth comes from the private sector. We will help businesses to create jobs. We will not raise taxes on growth.
  • Since July 2009, the Canadian economy has created more than 480,000 new jobs-more than were lost during the recession
  • we remain concerned about the number of Canadians looking for work
  • We need to keep protecting and creating jobs now
  • Keeping taxes low A key part of that foundation is low taxes.
  • Our government has delivered tax relief for all Canadians
  • Our tax cuts are also helping employers to invest, grow and create jobs.
  • Our commitment to low taxes is supported by a strong consensus: that protecting Canada's tax advantage is key to securing our recovery.
  • Canadian industries Even so, in the current global economic climate, many businesses remain hesitant to invest and to hire.
  • Our government will take further action to encourage them to expand and create jobs.
  • The Hiring Credit for Small Business will provide a one-year EI break for some 525,000 Canadian small businesses
  • Expanding international trade Beyond this, we will promote new export opportunities for all Canadian businesses
  • We need to keep expanding our access to foreign markets, to create new jobs here at home.
  • We will provide greater financial security for Canadians, and practical help to make ends meet.
Noah Schafer

Election sealed corporate tax cuts; Canada needs more - The Globe and Mail - 0 views

www.theglobeandmail.com/...article2017147

Canada NDP USA Corprate tax

shared by Noah Schafer on 05 Jun 11 - No Cached
  • The election determined only that corporate tax rates won’t go up. It did not determine that they won’t go down – as, almost certainly, they will – through the next four years.
  • The average rate in 28 of the member countries of the OECD is 20 per cent.
  • In the campaign, the government asserted correctly that Canada’s corporate tax rate was the lowest in the G7. This, alas, wasn’t saying much. Four of the G7 countries have the four highest corporate tax rates in the world: U.S. (39.2 per cent); Japan (35.5 per cent); France (34.4 per cent); and Germany (30.2 per cent).
  • ...8 more annotations...
  • Canada’s rate (at this moment, 27 per cent).
  • As Canada trimmed, the world trimmed, too: 75 countries aggressively cut corporate tax rates in the past decade. China’s corporate tax rate is 20 per cent – discounted to 15 per cent for companies that invest in strategically important industries.
  • combined federal-provincial statutory tax rate of 25 per cent, won’t
  • The “Bowles-Simpson Plan,” proposed by President Barack Obama’s commission on fiscal reform, suggests a federal rate of 28 per cent. The Wyden-Gregg Plan, proposed by Democratic and Republican legislators, suggests 24 per cent. The China-OECD Plan, advanced by the non-partisan U.S. Tax Foundation, suggests 20 per cent
  • These rates are federal rates and don’t include corporate rates levied by the states: nominally, on average, 6.6 per cent; in fact, on average, 4.2 per cent. Thus a U.S. federal rate of 20 per cent (the China-OECD Plan) would produce a comprehensive “America rate” of 24.2 per cent
  • Canada’s goal assumed an “America rate” of 39.3 per cent: a competitive advantage for Canada of 14.3 percentage points.
  • when you add the federal rate and the average provincial rate (19 plus 12.5), you have a “Canada rate” of 31.5 per cent – the fourth-highest rate in the world: and twice as high as China’s most competitive rate.
  • The Conservative government took a lot of heat for incrementally lowering Canada’s corporate tax rate.
Ilia Merkoulovitch

'Wall of taxation' keeping businesses small, study says - 0 views

www.financialpost.com/...story.html

taxation business growth

shared by Ilia Merkoulovitch on 02 Jun 11 - No Cached
  • Small business tax incentives are keeping businesses in Canada small, hindering business efficiency and disproportionately benefiting the wealthy
  • Canada has a special small business deduction that allows companies with less than $500,000 in revenue to be taxed at a rate of 11%, less than the standard 16.5% corporate rate.
  • only 12% of small businesses grew from having less than five employees to 5-19 employees, and only 1% grew to having more than 20 employees from 1985 to 1992
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • the small business tax rate has led to an abundance of small businesses in Canada that have no intention to grow
  • Ilia Merkoulovitch on 02 Jun 11
     
    Incentives on taxes for small businesses keeps them small and benefits the wealthy disproportionately. Companies with less than $500,000 in revenue are only taxed at 11%, instead of 16.5%, the standard rate.
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.
  • ...9 more annotations...
  • 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.”
Kiruban Mahadeva

Tax incentives don't create jobs: economist - 0 views

www.calgaryherald.com/...story.html

Tax Government Spending Jobs

shared by Kiruban Mahadeva on 31 May 11 - No Cached
  • Tax incentives for small business don't create jobs and in some cases restrict a company's growth
  • lower taxes create disincentives for small businesses to grow
  • governments have reduced or eliminated corporate taxes on small businesses (2.5 per cent in Alberta) even though there is no evidence the move is effective
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • companies may break into smaller units to take advantage of tax benefits
  • concern really is over the growth aspect and job creation, because we do see so few small businesses growing
Lok-Hin Yuen

Corporate taxes being cut, Canadian jobs being lost - 0 views

www.marketwire.com/...an-jobs-being-lost-1420235.htm

Jobs Corporate Taxes Bell Canada

shared by Lok-Hin Yuen on 04 Jun 11 - No Cached
  • The layoff of 100 Bell Canada workers is appalling, and a clear sign the next federal government needs to do much more to protect Canadian workers
  • BCE has eliminated close to 700 clerical jobs in Ottawa, many of the positions being outsourced outside of Canada.
  • The layoff of these workers is a far too common example of how the 'trickle-down' thinking of the Harper Conservatives is failing Canadian workers
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • corporate tax cuts are not creating jobs or investments, and they are not helping Canadians recover from the global recession
John wang

With HST makeover, B.C. Premier captures middle ground - The Globe and Mail - 1 views

www.theglobeandmail.com/...article2036654

shared by John wang on 02 Jun 11 - No Cached
  • hike corporate taxes to give families and seniors a break.
  • vote for keeping the tax
  • eat the rich
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • Now, those same B.C. Liberals say raising the corporate income tax rate is an “honest rebalancing” between big business and consumers.
  • she has raised the minimum wage, restored funding cuts to charities, and even jumped on Mr. Dix’s proposal to ban cosmetic pesticides.
  • She speaks for a tiny elite
  • But offering to raise corporate income taxes is not just a populist manoeuvre.
Carolyne Wang

Is income inequality just business as usual? - The Globe and Mail - 0 views

www.theglobeandmail.com/...singlepage

Income Inequality Historical Trends Cultural Attitudes toward Income

shared by Carolyne Wang on 02 Jun 11 - No Cached
    • Carolyne Wang
      Carolyne Wang on 02 Jun 11
       
      The visuals in this link show the distribution of wealth among the highest income earners in Canada.
  • international statistics show that poverty rates are lowest where income inequality is lowest too. That can be because of culture -- the wage spectrum is compressed, as in Japan, where it is unseemly to get too far ahead of others in pay -- or through active redistribution programs, where taxes and the services they buy redistribute incomes and opportunities to try to level the playing field a bit more.
  • For most of the 20th century inequality in Canada - and in virtually all developed nations, actually - had been declining. By the 1980s that long term trend reversed. First because of recessions (where the bottom end of the spectrum lost ground) then because of rowth (when the top part of the income spectrum zoomed ahead). So for the past generation inequality has grown in Canada, in good times and bad.
  • ...7 more annotations...
  • There are two reasons for hope. One is, oddly, the result of an aging population and the consequent shrinking pool of workers, which may push up wages for workers producing basic goods and services, not just those at the top of the skill spectrum. The other is a culture shift, where a growing number of boomers understand what is at play and start working with others to come up with ways to ensure there will be a resilient middle class for the next generation.
  • When the cost of something goes up, we tend to consume less of it. So, since living wages are higher than minimum wages, employers are likely to hire fewer workers. A living wage campaign is part of the effort to raise the visibility of a sorry development in Canada. The saying that "the best social policy is a job" is in many ways true; but a new reality has developed over the past decade or so - that you can't necessarily escape poverty by working. Working full-time full-year at a minimum wage job, as many adults do, condems you to poverty.
  • Professor Richard Wilkinson just finished a tour of Canada, discussing his research findings from the past 30 years or so. A social epidemiologist, he has gathered international data showing the very tight correlation between life expectancy and income inequality, between literacy and income inequality, between rates of incarceration and income inequality, etc. etc. Over and over again he shows a range of issues that have a strong social gradient which reveal that almost everybody is better off in a society with greater income equality, including the rich. You can see his presentation in Vancouver at this link. http://i.sfu.ca/TmyYCh
  • The Mincome experiment in Manitoba in the mid 1970s, the MacDonald Commission i n the mid 1980s, and the House Report from Newfoundland and Labrador in the early 1990s all had proposals for providing a basic income. Only Manitoba tried it, as a pilot project, for a few years. The problem with the guaranteed income idea is at what rate you set it, and at what rate you tax it back. It could remove the stigma of income support programs, but it could just as easily be a costly experiment that, essentially, guarantees poverty. Also, as Dr. Wilkinson has suggested, at some point on the GDP per capita curve, income inequality is no longer about material deprivation, but rather one of psycho-social responses. We are, after all, pack animals.
  • We can redress some of the vagaries of the market through public policies, but the root cause of growing inequality is how different peoples' work is valued. IN a slow growth environment, which seems to be the foreseeable future for Canada, it will become harder and harder for those at the top of corporate structures to take the types of increases they have been commanding in the marketplace and expect unionized workers to be happy about losing their pension, benefits and wage increases, and expect low-end workers to essentially stay put or lose more ground. Two things can happen - those at the top start moderating their increases; or those in the middle and the bottom start seeing solid increases, particularly as the wave of retirements starts accelerating. The problem with rising incomes, generally, is that usually goes along with rising prices; and we're about to host the largest cohort of retirees we've ever had in history, a group that lives on fixed and low incomes, to whom rising prices are toxic. So how will the highest priced workers get away witih demanding more in that context I wonder?
  • Historically, increasing economic growth first deliver rising inequality, then lowering inequality (Simon Kuznets' famous work back in the 1950s). That's still true of developing nations - economic growth is first badly distributed, then leads to demands for greater equality.
  • We can raise our kids more equitably - but it will take more taxes. We can have less of a winner take all society - but it will require some people at the top to trim their expectations. We can beat this in small ways, but we also need leaders to express the way forward. In the US they have Warren Buffett, Bill Gates and politicians leading the way. We're waiting for more people like Ed Clarke, the CEO of TD Bank, to weigh in on how to make Canada fairer (his suggestion is higher taxes on the rich).
Chris Lee

Tax policies may aggravate gap between rich and poor - thestar.com - 0 views

www.thestar.com/...vate-gap-between-rich-and-poor

Income Inequality Conservatives Stephen Harper rich gap

shared by Chris Lee on 02 Jun 11 - No Cached
  • , Canada is witnessing a phenomenon in which the most wealthy are enjoying stunning increases in their income while the rest of society stagnates.
  • Angel Gurria, head of the industrialized world’s main think tank, is warning that income equality is becoming a “serious threat.”
  • According to Toronto research agency Investor Economics, the richest 3.8 per cent of Canadian households controlled 66.6 per cent of all financial wealth (not counting real estate) by 2009, up from 60.6 per cent in 2005
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • economists say the benefits to the rich from these tax breaks will far outweigh anything seen by other members of society.
  • single parents, who account for one in five families with young children and have the highest rate of poverty in this country.
  • “The families that will most benefit from Harper’s income-splitting promise will be those who need the least help,” says Armine Yalnizyan, an economist with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. “The higher the income, the bigger the tax break.”
Alejandro Enamorado

Of the 1%, by the 1%, for the 1% | Society | Vanity Fair - 0 views

www.vanityfair.com/...top-one-percent-201105

economics inequality USA stiglitz

shared by Alejandro Enamorado on 03 Jun 11 - No Cached
  • In terms of wealth rather than income, the top 1 percent control 40 percent. Their lot in life has improved considerably. Twenty-five years ago, the corresponding figures were 12 percent and 33 percent.
  • While the top 1 percent have seen their incomes rise 18 percent over the past decade, those in the middle have actually seen their incomes fall. For men with only high-school degrees, the decline has been precipitous—12 percent in the last quarter-century alone.
  • The justification they came up with was called “marginal-productivity theory.” In a nutshell, this theory associated higher incomes with higher productivity and a greater contribution to society.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • The most obvious example involves tax policy. Lowering tax rates on capital gains, which is how the rich receive a large portion of their income, has given the wealthiest Americans close to a free ride.
  • Imagine what the world might look like if the rules were designed instead to encourage competition among countries for workers. Governments would compete in providing economic security, low taxes on ordinary wage earners, good education, and a clean environment—things workers care about.
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.”
  • ...22 more annotations...
  • 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
dylan huber

Income inequality | The Economist - 0 views

www.economist.com/...income_inequality

Inequality Income solutions USA

shared by dylan huber on 02 Jun 11 - No Cached
  • Despite a quarter century during which incomes have drifted ever farther apart, the distribution of wealth has remained remarkably stable. The richest Americans now earn as big a share of overall income as they did a century ago, but their share of overall wealth is much lower. Indeed, it has barely budged in the few past decades.
  • distribution of wealth has remained remarkably stable. The richest Americans now earn as big a share of overall income as they did a century ago, but their share of overall wealth is much lower. Indeed, it has barely budged in the few past decades.
  • Productivity and globalisation have caused real income to rise much faster for those at the top of the income distribution than it has for the poor and middle class. High earners experienced more than a 30% increase in their real income over the last thirty years. Meanwhile, the bottom 50% of wage earners saw their real income increased by only 5-10%.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • Whether these shifts were good or bad depends on your political persuasion. Those on the left lament the gaps, often forgetting that the greater income disparities have created bigger incentives to get an education, which has led to a better trained, more productive workforce. The share of American workers with a college degree, 20% in 1980, is over 30% today.
  • the focus should be on giving everyone a an equal chance to be successful. This might mean making the tax code less regressive by expanding the earned income tax credit, eliminating tax subsidies to the rich, and improving access to quality education. 
dani tav

Ontario Tories vow to cut government spending $600 million - 0 views

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

Govenment Tax cuts Conservative

shared by dani tav on 31 May 11 - No Cached
  • Conservative government would cut $600 million in government spending in its first full year in office
  • he party says the cuts — which
  • cuts — which will reach $2.3 billion
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • reducing the size of government, forcing unions to compete for government contracts and reducing red tape on business
  • introduce forced manual labour for prisoners.
  • make it illegal to raise taxes without a clear mandate
Joey Keum

UPDATE 2-Canada unveils plan for jobs, balanced budget | Reuters - 0 views

www.reuters.com/...politics-idUSN0316118820110603

canadians market jobs

shared by Joey Keum on 04 Jun 11 - No Cached
  • Aims to balance budget by 2014 without raising taxes
  • OTTAWA, June 3 (Reuters) - Canada's Conservative government will focus on jobs and growth while eliminating the federal budget deficit, it said on Friday as it unveiled a plan for the four-year mandate it won in last month's election.
  • "We will get back to work on the things that matter most to Canadians: good jobs, security for our families and a prosperous future," Johnston said on behalf of the government.
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • "Jobs and growth will remain our government's top priority," Johnston said.
  • "In order to accelerate the return to a balanced budget and to eliminate the deficit one year earlier, over the next year we will undertake a strategic and operating review of government spending," he said.
  • "Our government's plan will put us on a strong footing to resume paying down the federal debt, further reduce taxes on families and continue investing in priorities."
John wang

Low university tuition benefits the rich not the poor: book - Report Card - 0 views

communities.canada.com/...he-rich-not-the-poor-book.aspx

economic inequality university tuition

shared by John wang on 02 Jun 11 - No Cached
  • benefit the rich more than the poor.
  • require them and governments to help students from low-income families with grants, bursaries and loans.
  • tax transfers to the upper-middle class
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • most likely to benefit from registered education savings plans
  • $400 a year
  • tuition fees as tax deductions
  • denies universities the tuition money that they need
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.”
Noah Schafer

CTV Toronto - Harper plan would eliminate deficit by 2014 - CTV News - 2 views

www.cp24.com/...20110408

debt Canada jobs deficit

shared by Noah Schafer on 05 Jun 11 - No Cached
  • Prime Minister Stephen Harper unveiled his party's election platform Friday, promising a Conservative government would eliminate the deficit by 2014-2015
  • Harper said there were no plans to cut major programs and said the billions in cost savings required to balance the books would come from slashing government's operating cost
  • Conservatives understand you cannot tax your way to prosperity, you cannot create jobs by raising taxes," Harper said.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • It also features a bundle of crime bills that would be passed in the first 100 days of Parliament
  • The five main priorities of the campaign platform are jobs creation, supporting families, eliminating the deficit, getting tough on crime, and investing in the North.
Susan Cui

Canadian house prices continue to rise, although April sales down - 6 views

www.montrealgazette.com/...story.html

Housing Price Falling sales Rising Prices

shared by Susan Cui on 23 May 11 - No Cached
  • Canadian home prices continued their upward march in April, driven by strong investor demand in Vancouver, while cracks in the Toronto condominium market may be starting to appear.
  • The Canadian Real Estate Association said Tuesday the average price of a home sold in April across the country was $372,544, up eight per cent from a year ago.
  • but the Ottawa-based group cautioned that the figure was skewed due to "surging multimillion dollar property sales in selected areas of Greater Vancouver."
  • ...13 more annotations...
  • slow April sales figures
  • saw activity dip 4.4 per cent from March
  • The slow sales are said to have been driven by new mortgage rules which came into affect April 19 and made it tougher to borrow.
  • Changes to mortgage regulations that took effect in April 2011 likely sidelined a number of first-time homebuyers. By contrast, higher end homes sales in Greater Vancouver and Toronto had their best April ever.
  • more than 50 per cent of condominiums sold in the past year were purchased by buyers who do not intend to occupy their units and plan to rent in many instances.
  • People are buying these for capital appreciation.
  • Don Lawby, chief executive of Century 21 Canada, says the housing market has been affected by foreign investors who have reacted to tougher tax rules in their home country by investing abroad.
  • They are not afraid to offer above price and they are not afraid to get into a bidding war
  • Nevertheless, Lawby says
  • these investors
  • are small and the impact on the larger market minimal.
  • while April numbers present a market with falling sales and rising prices,
  • market conditions were exaggerated by some one-time issues.
Susan Cui

Best Way to Fix Housing Market Let Prices Fall (Fast): Tech Ticker, Yahoo! Finance - 3 views

finance.yahoo.com/...-Market-Let-Prices-Fall-(Fast)

Housing Price Best way to fix

shared by Susan Cui on 23 May 11 - No Cached
  • "Fixing the housing market" is usually defined as:Stopping house prices from falling Stopping foreclosures
  • Prices. The best way to stop prices from falling is to let them fall far enough to reach equilibrium, fast.
  • Foreclosed houses are selling like hotcakes because prices are finally attractive enough to draw in new capital.
  • ...15 more annotations...
  • Un-foreclosed houses are NOT selling like hotcakes, but this is because their owners have yet faced up to the reality of how little they are worth (or, put differently, because they don't yet have to sell).
  • The vast majority of plans to "stop prices from falling" involve subsidies of one form or another (tax credits, subsidized mortgage rates, etc.)  These may slow the decline, but they won't stop it
  • subsidizing/encouraging debt-bingeing and homeownership is what got us until this mess in this first place.
  • The fastest and most effective way to stop prices from falling is to let them fall until they've reached equilibrium. And then start rebuilding wealth, equity, and economic growth from there.
  • Lots of Americans are going to lose their houses in the next few years regardless of what we do.
  • Keeping the number of foreclosures as small as possible
  • will just delay the inevitable
  • Importantly,
  • Foreclosures are caused by owners' inability to make debt payments.
  • The best way to stop foreclosures, therefore, is to get people out of houses they can't afford and into houses they CAN afford (whether by renting or buying).
  • the house-price issue
  • (No reason to buy or build now if you think prices will be cheaper tomorrow).
  • Businesses and consumers
  • open up their wallets
  • when house prices stop falling. And the fastest way to get there is to let them fall.
dani tav

Wonkbook: Debt limit vote, part I - Ezra Klein - The Washington Post - 1 views

www.washingtonpost.com/...AGKSoMFH_blog.html

Government Spending Budget Cuts debt Housing Price

shared by dani tav on 31 May 11 - No Cached
  • a proposal Tuesday that would increase the nation’s ability to borrow money without also making major cuts in federal spending
  • initial request that the nation’s $14.3 trillion debt ceiling be lifted without any accompanying spending reductions
  • politically impossible.
  • ...7 more annotations...
  • o get my vote on the debt ceiling..Medicare will be a part of it
  • argued against using $80 billion in taxpayer dollars to try to save General Motors Co., Chrysler and many of their suppliers."
  • economists largely predicted the U.S. recovery would ramp back up as short-term disruptions such as higher gas prices, bad weather and supply problems in Japan subsided
  • he ownership rate is now back to the level of 1998, and some housing experts say it could decline to the level of the 1980s or even earlier
  • Cutting tax breaks for retirement won't raise a lot of money;
  • economy
  • medical school free
1 - 20 of 31 Next ›
Showing 20▼ items per page