Archive for the ‘Economy/Employment’ Category

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How to restore Canada’s Employment Insurance program

Tuesday, April 21st, 2020

If we hadn’t already spent most of it, the EI surplus could have been used to pay for the entire cost of the Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB) program, currently estimated to cost $24 billion, and much of the $71 billion to support the Federal Wage Subsidy Program. The fact is, a strong, comprehensive and robust EI system that provides for all workers could have avoided the need to develop any overlapping programs.

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Millions of Canadians are now collecting a state-funded income. But what happens after the pandemic ends?

Saturday, April 18th, 2020

The advent of UBI in its pure form is unlikely. It has its champions today as never before, but UBI is likely to fade as the pandemic does. To start, the federal finance ministry, no fan of UBI, prefers to create targeted rather than universal programs. And never mind the streamlined efficiency of universal programs like Medicare… the issue isn’t affordability. It’s culture. People either embrace or reject paying the freight for ensuring that everyone has a decent, dignified way of life.

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Shockproofing Canada: We can make masks and ventilators, but we can’t make drugs needed to treat COVID-19

Friday, April 17th, 2020

“That’s the problem with stockpiles… You end up sitting on millions of dollars in drugs and equipment. Then you have to keep replacing it. And which ones do you stockpile?” The alternative, then, would be to expand production capacities for pharmaceuticals and medical supplies at home, but that’s more complicated than it might seem… Countries such as Canada will have to each find their own balance between self-reliance and international cooperation…

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COVID-19’s impact: not recession, but a completely different economics

Saturday, April 11th, 2020

… sectors hit first like education and child care, retail, personal services and restaurants [are] more female-dominated… They are paid less, are more likely to have part-time or temporary work, and are less likely to have or be able to enforce protections like sick leave and sick pay… the service sector’s gender-skew challenges governments to improve existing income supports to prevent desperate and counter-productive economic survival plans.

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Let’s think big about what a post-pandemic Canada looks like – and let’s do it now

Friday, April 10th, 2020

How do we prepare our health-care system for the next epidemic? How do we make social welfare more comprehensive and compassionate? Do we do this by revisiting the idea of a guaranteed annual income? … Yes, it will cost money. We will incur huge deficits. But as Bob Rae and Mel Cappe wrote, “We are all Keynesians now.” … National commissions are not new to us… who should lead this national commission on recovery? Why, Mark Carney, of course.

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Could the CERB program lead Canada toward offering a universal basic income?

Friday, April 10th, 2020

… it will be difficult for the government to phase out policy changes introduced with the CERB: a guaranteed minimum payment for all recipients, the inclusion of gig economy and other contract workers, and no regional variation in qualifying for payments… Right now, it’s clear that the millions of Canadians who have lost work are victims of circumstance and need help… [but] This is a suspension of the usual moral judgment that those not working have brought their fates on themselves… creating a political barrier to a universal basic income.

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Women, younger workers bear brunt of one million job losses in March

Thursday, April 9th, 2020

… slightly more than one million people lost their jobs in March, easily the largest one-month decline in data that go back to 1976… Another 2.1-million people worked less than half their usual hours, or were away from work, bringing the total number of affected workers to 3.1 million… Young workers endured a brutal month. The number of employed people aged 15 to 24 dropped by nearly 400,000, or 15.4 per cent, with the decrease almost entirely in part-time work.

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Universal livable basic income in times of crisis and beyond

Thursday, April 9th, 2020

Universal livable basic income could be distributed and taxed back where total incomes warrant, using the current tax system. This is one of the most simple and effective ways of distributing funds to those in need… It would allow us to build on already existing government infrastructure rather than creating additional programs to administer… Universal livable basic income can reduce financial inequality and help vulnerable people secure safe and healthy accommodation in their everyday lives and during times of crisis.

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Ottawa should produce vital products — like it did in the Second World War

Wednesday, April 8th, 2020

… many companies have signalled a willingness to produce materials for the pandemic. But, without a powerful government agency overseeing production and distribution, we’ve been left scrambling to buy scarce equipment in a chaotic private marketplace, bidding against U.S. states and governments all over the world. If the Trudeau government seems unable to break out of its subservience to the marketplace, some in the labour movement are showing more vision.

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Canada will need a new industrial policy for a new world

Tuesday, April 7th, 2020

The pandemic is like an x-ray that reveals flaws in our social and economic body that we can no longer ignore… The drive to outsource everything possible in the name of the cheapest possible product has left far too many stranded in precarious, poorly paid work… The gaping holes in the social safety net laid bare by the pandemic make clear that we’ll end up paying one way or the other, either in higher prices needed to provide decent wages, or in expensive social benefits.

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