Archive for the ‘Equality’ Category
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Paper wealth provides little security
On paper, they’re better off because of a 47-per-cent appreciation in the value of homes since 2005. But that kind of wealth can shrink… Younger families didn’t do nearly as well in the survey as their baby-boomer parents… Household debt rose at a faster pace than assets… The poorest 20 per cent of the population — some 2.7 million families — lost ground.
Tags: economy, housing, poverty, standard of living
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Closer reading of StatsCan report troubling for middle class
… most of this net worth increase is due to phenomenal inflation in home values… [but] Mortgage debt… is reported to be up $650 billion since 2005. Total debts on lines of credit have almost doubled since 2005… median real earnings of individuals working full-time on a full-year basis between 1980 and 2005 increased… a paltry $53 over 25 years… Earnings growth numbers, therefore, do not reveal a financially thriving middle class.
Tags: economy, featured, housing, ideology, standard of living
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How marriage contributes to household inequality
What the marriage gap data tells us, in reality, is that married couples are doing much better economically than everyone else. Are we absolutely certain that these are the households that need a tax break? The families living in the bottom of the income distribution in Canada have seen no improvement in their standard of living over the past 35 years… If we really care about the welfare of families in this group what we really need is policies that allow unmarried households, particularly those with children, to have a standard of living that at least approaches those of married households.
Tags: child care, ideology, poverty, standard of living, tax, women
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Taxing the rich is good for the economy IMF says
… comparing pre- and post-tax data from a large number of countries, the authors say there is convincing evidence that lower net inequality is good economics, boosting growth and leading to longer-lasting periods of expansion. In the most controversial finding, the study concludes that redistributing wealth, largely through taxation, does not significantly impact growth unless the intervention is extreme.
Tags: economy, featured, ideology, standard of living, tax
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The ‘paycheque to paycheque’ myth:
It found that families in the bottom quintile have seen their net worth decline slightly since 1999. Back then, the bottom 20% of families had a median net worth of $1,300. That dropped to $1,100 in 2005 and remained unchanged in 2012. Meanwhile, the wealthiest 20% of families in Canada possessed 67.4% of the country’s net worth in 2012, down from 69.2% in 2005. Consequently, the three middle quintiles — which can roughly be defined as Canada’s middle class — increased their share of the country’s $8.07-trillion personal net worth by 1.8 percentage points.
Tags: economy, participation, poverty, standard of living
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A splitting tax headache
The unfairness in question is for “traditional” couples, i.e., in which one partner works only part-time or not at all so that the family’s whole income is mainly earned by the working partner, who likely faces a higher marginal rate and therefore pays more tax than if the identical income were split evenly between partners… Feminists respond to this unfairness argument with “Unfair yourself!”
Tags: budget, child care, economy, ideology, participation, standard of living, tax, women
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Internal government report calls middle-class dreams a ‘myth’
Canada’s middle-class is mortgaging its future to stay afloat, making the Canadian dream “a myth more than a reality.” That’s the blunt assessment of an internal Conservative government report, an unvarnished account of the plight of middle-income families that’s in contrast to the rosier economic picture in this month’s budget… The Canadian Press obtained the report under the Access to Information Act.
Tags: budget, economy, globalization, ideology, standard of living
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Enforce Ontario’s law on access for the disabled
… since the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act became law… in 2007 – the Liberal government’s lack of interest in upholding its own rules has created unconscionable delays for the disabled… The act requires that companies with 20 or more employees file electronic reports detailing how they accommodate customers with disabilities, train staff and handle customer feedback. As of last fall, a whopping 70 per cent (36,000) hadn’t bothered to do so.
Tags: disabilities, Health, mental Health, participation, rights, standard of living
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Average middle-class family income in Conservative budget called ‘make believe’
Middle-class families are struggling economically, but at least one of them is doing quite well, thank you very much: the working parents with two kids who appear as a fictitious example in the federal budget each year. Critics say the family’s rapidly rising income is a complete fiction as well… Along with those big income hikes come added “savings” in taxes… [but] the increased tax savings for 2014 are largely the result of additional GST tax savings, based on the family’s higher income.
Tags: budget, economy, ideology, standard of living, tax
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Stephen Leacock’s satire of the idle rich resonates today
… their attitudes — that wealth is synonymous with personal merit; that affluence entitles an individual to shape society’s rules; and that all public institutions should produce healthy surpluses — are familiar… The world in which the economically privileged live… is so insular that its inhabitants are disconnected from the city around them, the country in which they live and the very idea of the common good.
Tags: economy, featured, ideology, poverty, standard of living, tax
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