Assorted content to end your week. – Noah Smith offers a reminder that market principles don’t work for everything. And Amelie Quesnel-Vallee and Miles Taylor note that in the health sector in particular, the use of private providers to supplement an underfunded public system is leading to inequitable disparities in
Continue readingTag: Minimum wage
Accidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Crawford Kilian writes that Donald Trump’s presidency is merely a symptom of the wider disease of undue deference to wealth. And Matt Karp comments on the need for progressives to identify the problem rather than soft-peddling class divisions: What distinguished the Bernie Sanders
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Mariana Valverde examines how P3 schemes are putting financiers in charge of deciding what public infrastructure to build, while leaving future generations of citizens with massive bills to pay. And the Star Phoenix’ editorial board rightly warns Brad Wall against selling off Saskatchewan’s
Continue readingMichal Rozworski: What do we do when we Fight for $15
On this episode, three guests provide some perspective on the politics and the economics of the Fight for $15. First, I speak with Jonathan Rosenblum, campaign director at the first Fight for $15 at SeaTac Airport, just outside Seattle, Washington. Workers there won an immediate raise to $15 via a municipal ordinance
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – The Global Alliance for Tax Justice examines the most common tax evasion practices used to allow the wealthy to avoid paying their fair share. And Desmond Cohen points out how our current estimates of inequality underestimate exactly how much is being hidden. –
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Kate Aronoff writes that in addition to being a political loser, corporate-friendly centrism is extremely dangerous in allowing for far less than the effort we should be putting into fighting climate change. And Tess Riley reports on new research that only a
Continue readingMichal Rozworski: Canadian economists support $15, media round-up
53 Canadian economists, myself among them, have signed an open letter in support of the $15 per hour minimum wage. The letter follows on the immense bottom-up campaign in Ontario led by the Fight for $15 and Fairness, which has successfully pressured the provincial government to announce a move to $15 by 2019.
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Michael Rozworski discusses the importance of workers exercising power over how our economy functions. Robert Booth reports on a forthcoming UK study showing the desperate need for improved quality of work and life among low-income individuals. And Lana Payne writes that a strong
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Danny Dorling writes about the connection between high inequality and disregard for the environment: In a 2016 report, Oxfam found that the greatest polluters of all were the most affluent 10% of US households: each emitted, on average, 50 tonnes of CO2 per
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Alan Freeman discusses the real costs of ideologically-driven deregulation: The idea that “the market” will root out bad actors in any industry and that regulations are just a hindrance to economic vitality is a dangerous concept. Companies, like individuals, will do what they
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Economists support $15 minimum wage in Ontario
We, the undersigned economists, support the decision to increase the minimum wage in Ontario to $15 an hour. Raising the wage floor makes good economic sense. Today, Ontario’s minimum wage is $11.40 per hour. Adjusted for inflation, this is barely one dollar higher than its value in 1977. Yet over
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Alex Collinson discusses how insecure work makes it impossible to reliably structure an individual’s life: Many respondents told us about how difficult it is to budget without knowing how much you’ll be earning from one week to the next. The number of
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Afternoon Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Larry Elliott is optimistic that the UK’s election result will lead to an end of destructive austerity. James Downie comments on the example Jeremy Corbyn’s campaign provides for progressives in the U.S. (and elsewhere). And Karl Nerenberg writes about the importance of youth
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – Armine Yalnizyan writes that a $15 minimum wage is ultimately good for businesses as well as for people: When higher income households see wage gains, some of it goes to savings. Additional consumption also often flows to vacations and luxury goods, often
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Meagan Gilmore examines how an increased minimum wage is good for business. – Hannah Aldridge offers some suggestions to keep a poverty reduction strategy on target. And Make Poverty History notes that Brian Pallister is offering a textbook example of how not to
Continue readingThe Political Road Map: Don’t Be Afraid of Raising The Minimum Wage!
I decided to write this post in response to the usual chatter that is generated, whenever the government decides to impose an increase on minimum wage. Usually, you will hear some form of Libertarian or Anarchist arguing that the increase in minimum wage will not only lead to higher prices,
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: New column day
Here, on how several other provinces are setting new (and necessary standards) for worker protections while Saskatchewan falls further behind. For further reading…– Ontario’s Changing Workplaces Review is here (in full), and here (in summary form). CBC reports on Kathleen Wynne’s subsequent minimum wage announcement, while Sheila Block crunches the
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Gary Younge examines how Jeremy Corbyn and an unabashedly progressive campaign platform are making massive gains in a UK general election cynically called to exploit Labour’s perceived weakness: Seeing the response to Labour’s election manifesto last week was a clear illustration of just
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Patrick Butler writes about the increasing number of UK families mired in poverty and insecure housing even with one or more people working. And Ali Monceaux and Daniel Najarian discuss the importance of a fair minimum wage in providing people with a
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – Josh Bivens notes that U.S. corporations are already paying a lower share of taxes than has historically been the case – meaning that there’s no air of reality to the claim that handing them more money will produce any positive economic results.
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