This and that for your Tuesday reading. – James Wilt examines how Canada lets the corporate sector get away with paying far less than a fair price for our natural resources. And Marc Lee points out the massive subsidies British Columbia has handed to the natural gas industry in particular.
Continue readingTag: Minimum wage
Accidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – Claire Connelly calls out the perennial right-wing spin that there’s always money available for corporations or the security state, but that anything which would actually help people is invariably unaffordable. And Jim Pugh discusses how Republicans are looking to punish and impoverish
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Ed Finn reminds us that ending child poverty makes good economic sense in addition to being a moral necessity: The same huge financial benefit would be reaped in Canada from an equivalent investment in curbing poverty here. Based on the variance in populations
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Andrew Anthony interviews Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett about their new book on the connection between inequality and mental illness. And Danny Dorling discusses the external (and preventable) causes of many mental health issues: People working in separate disciplines are coming to the
Continue readingMichal Rozworski: The Ontario election isn’t about deficits—and that’s a good thing
How big is your deficit? This Ontario election, no one seems to care—and that’s a decisive positive to emerge from a campaign that’s too often been submerged in the politics of personality. There is more and more light sneaking through the widening cracks in Canada’s austerity consensus. Hopefully, it will
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Yanis Varoufakis discusses the loss of freedom when one’s whole life needs to be planned around corporate wishes and sensitivities: A capacity to fence off a part of one’s life, and to remain sovereign and self-driven within those boundaries, was paramount to the
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Oleg Komlik takes note of Wade Cole’s research showing how income inequality affects political dynamics. And Hannah Finnie recognizes that young people are joining unions (among other forms of social activism) in order to gain some much-needed influence on both fronts, while Paul
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – PressProgress crunches the numbers on tax loopholes and finds that more and more revenue is being lost to the most glaring loopholes every year. And Andrew Jackson hopes for a sorely-needed response from the federal government to rein in tax avoidance by the
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Paul Constant discusses a new study showing that the positive effects of minimum wage increases for low-income workers actually grow over time. And Sheila Block highlights how a $15 increased minimum wage stands to offer far more to workers than Doug Ford’s
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
Assorted content for your Sunday reading. – Nick Falvo offers a useful summary of the federal-provincial framework on housing – including its lack of any specific mention of homelessness and supportive housing among other deficiencies. – Meanwhile, Justin McElroy reports on the Horgan government’s plan to ensure more rights for
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Evening Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Dick Bryan argues that the minimum wage should reflect the financial risks faced by low-wage workers, while Nick Day offers some lessons in successful economic activism from the $15 and Fairness movement. And Yasemin Besen-Cassino points out that gender-based pay inequity starts
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Lana Payne writes about the need for real wage increases to relieve the financial stress on Canadian workers. – Sheila Block examines the relative effects of tax cuts and minimum wage increases on lower-income workers, and finds that people are far better off
Continue readingMichal Rozworski: Jobs data doesn’t say much about the minimum wage (yet) but lots about growing inequality
We’ve had two months of jobs data in Canada since Ontario increased it’s minimum wage from $11.60 to $14 on January 1, 2017. When January’s Labour Force Survey numbers came out and showed some of the biggest month-over-month losses in years, there was a slew of predictable, reflexive commentary blaming
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Panel discussion at federal NDP policy convention
Yesterday I spoke on a panel discussion on economic inequality, along with Andrew Jackson and Armine Yalnizyan. We were guests at the federal NDP’s policy convention in Ottawa. The panel was moderated by Guy Caron. Topics covered included the minimum wage, basic income, affordable housing, the future of jobs, gender
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Jim O’Neill proposes an end to corporate free-riding (and an assurance of contribution to the society which allows for profit) through explicit “pay-or-play” rules: Since proposing a pay-or-play scheme for the pharmaceutical industry, I have come to think that the same principle could
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Afternoon Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Thomas Kochan takes a look at what workers would want done with the cost of corporate tax cuts if they weren’t being silenced by the U.S.’ corporatist political system. And Steven Greenhouse points out a new set of protests and strikes intended to
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Evening Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Wanda Wyporska discusses why we can’t expect a group of cloistered elites to do anything to solve the changeable dimensions of inequality. – Jonathan Ford and Gill Plimmer write that the UK is beginning to learn its lesson about the dangers of privatizing
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – Jesse Winter is the latest reporter to tell the stories of a few minimum-wage workers who will see a raise as a result of improved employment standards. And Erika Shaker points out that a substantial minimum-wage increase is a long-overdue response to
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Simon Ducatel writes about the unfairness of attacking people living in poverty rather than looking for ways to improve their circumstances: (I)n the real world, it is unfortunately not unheard of for some employers to financially or otherwise exploit workers, albeit legally mind
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Kenneth Rogoff writes about the dangers of presuming that economic growth (at least in stock markets if not wages) can withstand political upheaval. Marco Chown Oved reports on the strong support for Democracy Watch’s petition to raise corporate taxes and close loopholes. Rajeshni
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