Archive for the ‘Social Security’ Category
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No to enhancing the CPP [?]
Saturday, December 21st, 2013
Finance Minister Jim Flaherty makes absolutely no sense by saying that people cannot afford to have more money taken off their paycheques, then insisting that we should be saving more / … Jim Flaherty is telling us that the economy is not strong enough to enhance the CPP… It seems even the Conservatives don’t believe their propaganda. / When a sizable portion of the population has either a part-time or temporary job, how can you acquire a good pension?
Tags: economy, ideology, participation, pensions, standard of living
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Who will advocate for social justice?
Friday, December 20th, 2013
In Canada, when a citizen becomes disabled, she is legislated into poverty. In Ontario, this poverty is so substantial that it would take a 50 per cent increase in social assistance rates just to bring the disabled up to the low income cut off, one measure of poverty. But Kathleen Wynne saw fit to give these vulnerable citizens one per cent, about 35 cents per day… she can behave this way only because Canadian citizens do not protest the abuse of those who are most vulnerable in our society
Tags: budget, disabilities, jurisdiction, participation, poverty, standard of living, women, youth
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‘A country that cannot feed its own people has no right to preach to others’
Friday, December 20th, 2013
Poverty is less a result of the inheritance of class than the inheritance of poverty… / The country may have never been wealthier, but that wealth is going to a few at the top, who pay about 50% of the taxes that they used to 30 years ago. How are poor families feeding their children? With foodbanks and by going into debt… / … by election time 2015, the number of children living at or below the poverty line in Canada will be one million… Where is the Harper government’s Policy on Poverty?
Tags: budget, featured, ideology, Indigenous, poverty, standard of living, tax, youth
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Poverty costs Canada billions of dollars every year
Wednesday, December 18th, 2013
Taxpayers’ dollars (federal, provincial and local) are being wasted. Research by economists for the Ontario Association of Food Banks demonstrated that the cost of poverty in Canada is between $72-billion to $86-billion annually (health care, soup kitchens, shelters, police, corrections). Poverty could be eliminated for just a fraction of this amount.
Tags: budget, crime prevention, economy, featured, Health, homelessness, ideology, Indigenous, poverty, standard of living, women, youth
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Who needs CPP?
Wednesday, December 18th, 2013
First, there’s Flaherty’s glib little spin line about “payroll taxes.” The CPP is not a payroll tax: it is the last bastion of a pension for seniors in this county, a measly $12,000 a year that is, for many, the one remaining constant in a working world that has seen, under Flaherty’s watch, companies flee from defined benefit pension plans and from pensions altogether…
Tags: economy, featured, ideology, poverty, privatization, standard of living
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Flaherty to savers: You’re on your own with CPP as it stands
Tuesday, December 17th, 2013
The CPP is not a welfare program, or an income-redistribution program. It’s not paid for by taxes. It’s a defined-benefit pension plan… It’s actuarially sound, independently run and low-cost. It’s one of the world’s best-run retirement safety nets… The choice is between each of us saving more on our own and all of us saving more, together. Canada’s extremely low savings are testimony to the fact that the former approach, Mr. Flaherty’s preferred route, isn’t working.
Tags: economy, ideology, participation, pensions, poverty, privatization, standard of living
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Ottawa is wrong to block much-needed CPP reform
Tuesday, December 17th, 2013
This failure of federal leadership and prudent stewardship is leading us nowhere good. Clearly, the CPP needs beefing up, insofar as it leaves millions at risk. Currently it covers earnings only up to about $50,000, providing up to $12,000 in annual pension. That’s little enough today. What will it be worth in 30 years’ time? … The advantages of a broad, enhanced CPP should be obvious… CPP reform is the way to go. And it’s past time we got going.
Tags: economy, ideology, participation, pensions, poverty, standard of living
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Finance ministers make right call on big CPP
Monday, December 16th, 2013
The starting idea, that Canadians are not saving enough and are at risk of ending up in retirement poverty, is a hotly debated theory that divides experts along ideological lines. Does government really know how much Canadians should be saving? Should it impose forced savings to meet specific macro-economic targets? What really stalled CPP expansion… is simple enough. The plans failed because of the underlying weaknesses of the claims and proposals put forward by proponents of radical expansion.
Tags: economy, ideology, pensions, poverty, standard of living
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Welfare in Canada 2012
Sunday, December 15th, 2013
This report focuses on the incomes of four different households living on social assistance, commonly known as “welfare”… the basic structure of social assistance is much the same across the country, even though the specifics may vary… There is no single or commonly accepted baseline, but rather several measures that typically are used for comparative purposes. The figures tell a powerful story about the adequacy of welfare incomes relative to the after-tax average incomes of Canadians.
Tags: ideology, jurisdiction, poverty, standard of living
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The time for pension reform is now
Saturday, December 14th, 2013
… if increases in CPP premium rates are phased in over the next three years, they can likely be implemented without a significant impact on economic growth, employees’ paycheques or employers’ payrolls. This could be done simply by raising CPP rates as the government implements the scheduled reductions to the employment insurance (EI) premium rates… While the EI rate reductions are not scheduled until 2016, they could be implemented earlier.
Tags: economy, ideology, pensions, standard of living, tax
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