Assorted content to end your week. – David Brancaccio and Rose Conlon write about the tendency for people involved in deliberately-rigged contests to believe their success is the result of skill rather than manipulation – offering an important comparison to wealthy people who can’t sort out luck from merit in
Continue readingTag: Minimum wage
Accidental Deliberations: Monday Afternoon Links
Assorted content to start your week. – Scott Gilmore discusses how our elected leaders have failed us in responding to COVID-19. Shannon Devine offers a warning to the Ford PCs about their insistence in putting workers’ lives and health at risk in the midst of a pandemic. And Christy Somos
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Lifting singles out of poverty in canada
I’ve written a report for the Institute for Research on Public Policy about social assistance—specifically, about social assistance for employable single adults without dependants. A ‘top 10’ overview of the report can be found here.
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: On diverging paths
Tonight’s Saskatchewan leadership debate will include plenty of back-and-forth as to whether we should vote for a better government, or settle for staying the course. And in answering that question, it’s worth taking a look at exactly what the status quo involves. Back when Scott Moe was threatening a spring
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Douglas Jang discusses how a bias toward slow and limited government has made our response less effective. Pouyan Tabasinejad points out that we shouldn’t allow politicians to blame the public for their own fecklessness. And Morgan Kelly writes about new research showing
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your Monday reading. – Richard Warnica discusses the end of a summer in which we’ve been far too lax about limiting the foreseeable effects of COVID-19. Aaron Wherry writes that the second wave of the coronavirus pandemic will hurt all the more since we’ve learned – but
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Reviewing Rick Perlstein’s Reaganland, Martin Gelin writes that the U.S. is paying the price for allowing itself to be trapped in a corporate autocracy since the Reagan years – and that it will take a concerted push for systemic change to improve matters
Continue readingTHE FIFTH COLUMN: Is Charity Evil
We supposedly live in a major developed industrialized country which is one of the seven most advanced economies in the world, yet: many people depend on charity to be fed and not starve, many people depend on charity for a place to sleep so they do not freeze to death
Continue readingTHE FIFTH COLUMN: Lessons We Must Learn From COVID-19 to Build a Better Society
Community is the key to the future. Those societies that are fairing best in responding to COVID 19 are those with a strong sense of community. America’s dismal response is not just because of Trump, but also due to the country’s overemphasis on individualism over community. Our public health care
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Shannon Daub. Alex Hemingway and Marc Lee examine the strong consensus among the B.C. public that the recovery from COVID-19 should build a more equitable and sustainable society. The CCPA has released its alternative federal budget plan to show how that could
Continue readingNorthern Currents: Workers deserve a 32 hour work week with no loss of pay
Share this: Since the industrialization of the world, workers organized in unions have fought for many key rights Canadians enjoy today. In the early days of Capitalism, it was not uncommon for a worker to spend 80 hours per week at their job in strenuous working conditions. Thanks to organized
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Joseph Stiglitz, Todd Tucker and Gabriel Zucman write about the need for governments to bring in sufficient revenue to act in the public interest. And Sophie Alexander points out some of the millionaires who want their class to contribute their fair share. –
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Simon Holmes a Court challenges the argument that any country or industry can opt out of being part of the response to our climate crisis. And Emily Holden comments on the oil industry’s control over public discussions about climate change, while Christopher Knaus
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Paul Krugman writes that the most frightening aspect of the U.S. Republicans is the party’s commitment to climate destruction for political gain: My sense is that right-wingers believe, probably correctly, that there’s a sort of halo effect surrounding any form of public action.
Continue readingThe Sir Robert Bond Papers: Setting minimum wage #nlpoli
The minimum wage should be tied to the economy, predictable, transparent, and removed from political interference. One way of setting minimum wage that meets those criteria would be to take half the average hourly rate for non-unionised employees for the previous fiscal year and increase it by the annual provincial
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Dylan Matthews writes about the growing body of evidence showing that minimum wage increases boost pay for lower-income workers while having no effect on the availability of jobs. And Paul Karp and Amy Remeikis report on new research challenging the explanation for reducing
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Afternoon Links
Miscellaneous material for your weekend reading. – David Jones writes about the important benefits enjoyed by workers as the result of the efforts of the labour movement. And Arindrajit Dube studies the international effects of minimum wage increases, finding that they consistently improve lower-end wages while having little effect on
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Afternoon Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Greg Wilpert interviews Julia Wolfe about the contract between soaring incomes for CEOs, and stagnant ones for workers. And David Cooper observes that everybody benefits from a fair minimum wage. – Christopher Cheung points out that the presence – or absence – of
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Evening Links
Assorted content for your Sunday reading. – Binyamin Appelbaum discusses the folly of having turned economic decision-making over to people who somehow saw income inequality and the concentration of wealth as desirable ends. And Geoff Zochodne points out that Canada has been suffering from the “American disease” of having corporate
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Kenney Conservatives find the perfect policy panel to push the working poor back to penury
If pushing the working poor back into penury is your policy objective, the United Conservative Party led by Premier Jason Kenney has found the right collection of ringers to stack its “expert panel” on rolling Alberta’s minimum wage back to pre-NDP levels. Labour Minister Jason Copping introduced the panel yesterday
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