Archive for the ‘Social Security’ Category
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Welfare Re-form: The Future of Social Policy
Tuesday, November 12th, 2013
… the future of social policy involves more than improvements to welfare alone… Three distinct components of income security reform would help… increasing the amount of Canada Child Tax Benefit to a maximum $5,400 per child… enhancing the value of the Working Income Tax Benefit that is paid to low-income workers and extending coverage to more of the working poor… creating a federally-delivered Basic Income for persons with severe and prolonged disabilities
Tags: budget, disabilities, featured, ideology, jurisdiction, pensions, poverty, standard of living, tax
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Improving CPP makes sense
Tuesday, November 12th, 2013
… the financial-services industry… charges among the highest management fees in the world, more than two per cent on average, which skims off 40 per cent of your savings over a lifetime. Why would the Fraser Institute continue to push this alternative? / All businesses… should embrace enhancements to the Canada Pension Plan. It’s not only good social policy, it’s good economic policy. That’s because businesses need consumers, and consumers need income. An enhanced CPP will provide just that.
Tags: economy, ideology, pensions, standard of living, tax
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An early look at what ‘Big CPP’ will look like
Sunday, November 10th, 2013
… any improvements will apply only to future service since an increase in existing benefits would not be fully funded for generations… The current CPP benefit is worth only 6% of pay but is costing us 9.9% into perpetuity because the previous generations did not pay enough… the CPP earnings ceiling, which tracks the national average wage, will be raised since the current ceiling of $51,100 is too low to capture much of the income of middle-income workers.
Tags: economy, ideology, pensions, standard of living
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Ignore the ‘job-killing’ mantra. It’s time to expand CPP benefits
Sunday, November 10th, 2013
Between 1997 and 2003 CPP premiums were hiked 70 per cent while the country’s employment rate rose strongly and steadily except for a slight dip with the 2001 economic downturn. In contrast, the premium rate hikes associated with most current proposals for CPP expansion would be only about 30 per cent. And unlike the earlier premium hikes, which were not associated with any improvements to CPP benefits, the proposed reforms would deliver large benefit increases.
Tags: economy, ideology, pensions, standard of living
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Enhancing CPP reduces poverty
Friday, November 8th, 2013
… in the absence of pension policy change, nearly six million workers in Canada, particularly younger workers, will experience a significant decline in living standards when they retire. If we don’t solve the poverty problem for seniors with an enhanced, universal, cost-effective plan like CPP, seniors will be a much bigger draw on tax revenue in the future… including old age security, guaranteed income supplement, Pharmacare, medicare premiums, and social services.
Tags: budget, disabilities, economy, Health, pensions, poverty, standard of living, tax
Posted in Social Security Policy Context | 2 Comments »
Don’t forget the poor and hungry
Wednesday, November 6th, 2013
Despite some incremental improvements by Wynne, social assistance payments are falling behind, creating an unhealthy and stressed underclass. That’s a tragic loss of human potential… Improvements to the Ontario Child Benefit, paid to low-income families, would be a good start… “If the payments weren’t constantly eroding we might see less children at food banks.”… Perhaps nothing is worse than the welfare payments for single adults…
Tags: budget, economy, ideology, poverty, standard of living
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Weighing in on pension reform
Monday, November 4th, 2013
instead of raising taxes on incomes, sales or business (dead-weight taxes that damage the economy), the new pension plan should be financed by capturing some of the unearned income that accrues to Ontario’s monopoly-owned assets like land and resources — wealth that economists call “economic rent.”
Tags: budget, economy, ideology, pensions, standard of living
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Enhancing the Canada Pension Plan – Myths & Facts
Monday, November 4th, 2013
Two-thirds of working Canadians – 12 million people – don’t have workplace pensions / $400,000 – is the average amount Baby Boomers are short of their individual retirement savings goal / 300,000 seniors live in poverty right now / 36% of Canadians stated a lack of confidence in their ability to save for retirement in 2011… The CPP is not run by government and it’s not a tax. CPP is an earned pension purchased by premiums paid equally by employee and employer.
Tags: economy, ideology, pensions, standard of living
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Our pension peril is the third rail of politics
Thursday, October 31st, 2013
… the book is essential reading for decision-makers. And an indispensable primer for voters — the people who ultimately call the shots, and who will pay the price if the pension peril is put off for another day… it outlines the demographic and fiscal pressures that pension founders didn’t foresee, and that fund managers closed their eyes to. Retirees are living far longer than ever envisioned, and fewer workers are entering the labour force to backstop any pension losses…
Tags: economy, ideology, participation, poverty, standard of living, tax
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Pension shift puts decades of progress at risk
Tuesday, October 22nd, 2013
By almost any measure, our defined-benefit pensions, which guarantee a continuing benefit on retirement that is based on a percentage of employee earnings for each year of service, are the most effective retirement savings system in the country… This is not a zero sum game where one group benefits at the expense of the other… Canada’s public pension funds offer financial security to millions of Canadian retirees while providing a major source of patient, long-term capital that funds vital infrastructure projects…
Tags: economy, featured, ideology, jurisdiction, pensions, standard of living
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