Allan Moscovitch and I have co-authored a blog post that looks at the history of child benefits in Canada. Points made in the blog post include the following: -Child benefits can reduce both poverty and homelessness. -When child benefits began in Canada after World War II, one major motivating factor
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The Progressive Economics Forum: The Alternative Federal Budget 2017
This year’s Alternative Federal Budget (AFB) was released on March 9. I was proud to be the primary author of its housing chapter (that chapter is available in English here and in French here). The first AFB exercise began in 1994, with the first AFB being published in 1995. That
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: The Federal Role in Poverty Reduction
Over at the web site of the Calgary Homeless Foundation, I’m co-author of a blog post titled “The Federal Role in Poverty Reduction.” Points raised in the blog post include the following: -Canada’s Minister of Families, Children and Social Development has been tasked to lead the development of a Canada
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Ten things to know about the CPP debate
This fall, Canada’s Parliament will debate a proposal to expand the Canada Pension Plan (CPP). And over at the Behind the Numbers web site, I’m co-author of a blog post titled “Ten things to know about the CPP debate.” The blog post’s other co-authors are Allan Moscovitch and Richard Lochead.
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Guaranteed Annual Income
Over at the web site of the Calgary Homeless Foundation, I’ve written a blog post titled “Ten things to know about Canada’s guaranteed annual income debate.” Points raised in the blog post include the following: -There are people and groups on both the left and right of the political spectrum
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Federal Income Support for Low-Income Seniors
Over at the Behind the Numbers web site, Allan Moscovitch, David Macdonald and I have a blog post titled “Ten Things to Know About Federal Income Support for Low-Income Seniors in Canada.” The blog post argues—among other things—that if the age of eligibility for Old Age Security were to move from 65 to 67, the […]
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Equal Pay Day
Every year, women around the world celebrate (angrily) the day their average full-time full-year earnings have caught up to men’s average full-time full-year earnings from the year before. This year in the United States that day fell on April 12th. In Germany it was March 19th. In Switzerland it was February 24th. In Ontario? Equal Pay […]
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: February Labour Force Woes
The unemployment rate is up again this month, to 7.3%, with 1.4 million workers looking for jobs in February. A loss of full-time work was partly replaced by part time positions. A disproportionate percentage of last year’s growth came from precarious self-employment. Remember those heady days when we could say that at least Canada’s unemployment rate […]
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Ten Things to Know About Homelessness in Canada
This afternoon I gave a presentation at Raising the Roof’s Child & Family Homelessness Stakeholder Summit in Toronto. My slide deck can be downloaded here. To accompany the presentation, I’ve prepared the following list of “Ten Things to Know About Homelessness in Canada.” 1.Efforts to enumerate persons experiencing homeless have
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Dix Choses à Savoir sur l’Itinérance au Canada
Cet après-midi, j’ai fait une présentation au Child & Family Homelessness Stakeholder Summit, organisé par Chez Toit, à Toronto. Ma presentation, illustrée de diapositives, peut être téléchargée ici. Pour accompagner la présentation, je vous ai préparé la liste suivante des « Dix choses à savoir sur l’itinérance au Canada. »
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Canada: World’s Next Superpower? Only If We Stop Relying On Temporary Foreign Workers
It’s only been a couple of weeks since Disney, that most iconic of American companies, moved to displace all its home grown techies with low-cost foreign temporary workers, But the company had to beat a hasty retreat in the face of an outpouring of criticism. Amid the deluge of commentary
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: The Myth of STEM Degrees: STEM as the Canary in the Coal Mine
What follow is a guest blog post from Glenn Burley: – If Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) and professional fields like medicine, law, and dentistry are the so-called golden ticket to a good job in today’s labour market, what does that say about the current and future health of
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: ROCHON on the IMF and labour market deregulations
LABOUR MARKET DEREGULATIONS NOT WORKING: IMF See original CBC column here. Recent — and potentially watershed — International Monetary Fund (IMF) documents have cast doubt on the merits of labour market deregulation of the last three decades, with important consequences for Canada. But will anyone listen? The last 30 years have not been kind to economic growth and
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: The Harper Record on Jobs, 2006 to 2014
Here is the link to a short study I have done for the Broadbent Institute on the Harper Record on Jobs from 2006 to 2014 based on annual averages from the Labour Force Survey. Coverage in today’s Toronto Star is here. The basic findings, that there is still a lot
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Transforming Precarious Work
The Ontario government has launched a review of their Labour Relations Act and Employment Standards Act. The premise is that the workplace has changed, and Ontario labour law no longer does as much as it should to protect vulnerable workers. The Workers’ Action Centre in Toronto took this opportunity to
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: ROCHON on: A tale of two economies? Making sense of recent US and Canadian labour market data
Louis-Philippe ROCHON Associate Professor, Laurentian University Co-Editor, Review of Keynesian Economics Follow him on Twitter @Lprochon With data on the performance of Canada’s labour market released today, many economists and pundits on both sides of the 49th parallel are arguing that what seems to be emerging is two very
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Why are women leaving Canada’s workforce?
I started producing an e-weekly earlier this year, Eye on the Economy: making sense of recent economic events, as a more regularly complement to the quarterly Economy at Work I also produce. Each issue contains a main commentary/analysis piece on a topical issue and also a curated round up with about
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: January Job Gain Part-time, Self-employment
As usual, the monthly Labour Force Survey numbers headline seems to tell a different story than the underlying numbers. According to the LFS, Canada added 35,000 jobs in January. A statistically significant number of jobs, hurray! But wait. Those were all part time jobs. We lost 10,000 full time jobs,
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: ROCHON: Harper in closet over the economy as Canada heads toward another recession
This guest blog post has been written by Louis-Philippe Rochon. You can follow him on Twitter @Lprochon – Harper’s recent incarnation as an anti-terrorist crusader has caught many Canadians by surprise. Harper is spending considerable political energy beating the drums of war against terrorists, and introducing a far-reaching, and much
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Rochon Asks: “Is the Canadian economy unraveling?”
In a recent CBC blog post, Louis-Philippe Rochon assesses the current state of the Canadian economy. The link to the blog post is here. Follow him on Twitter @Lprochon.
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