Posts Tagged ‘poverty’
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It’s past time to end academic streaming
streaming — which puts kids into either academic or applied courses in high school — was supposed to be phased out in Ontario in 1999. Yet almost 20 years later, it’s still with us despite overwhelming evidence that it hurts rather than helps kids… studies also suggest teachers and guidance councillors actually push racialized and low-income students into taking applied courses. That perpetuates income-based disparities in educational outcomes.
Tags: ideology, multiculturalism, participation, poverty, youth
Posted in Education Policy Context | 1 Comment »
Prescription for healthier population: spend more on social services
A one-cent increase in social spending for every dollar spent on health care increases life expectancy and cuts premature death, study shows… Dutton and his fellow researchers looked at health and social spending in nine provinces over 31 years from 1981 to 2011 and compared it to three population health measures: potentially avoidable death, life expectancy and infant mortality… “More social spending was associated with a more positive outcome. Life expectancy went up and potentially avoidable mortality went down,”
Tags: budget, featured, Health, ideology, mental Health, poverty, standard of living
Posted in Health Policy Context | No Comments »
We need to focus more on mental-health care
… access to appropriate, effective mental-health care needs to be seen as a basic human right and component of a publicly funded health-care system. / People suffering mental illness were deinstitutionalized without necessary community supports, to be managed by law enforcement and ER staff who lack the skills and facilities to respond respectfully. / The article understates real-world factors (marginalization, social determinants, and access to competent help) that can thwart the potential impacts of even the most cutting-edge research.
Tags: budget, disabilities, homelessness, mental Health, poverty, rights
Posted in Health Debates | No Comments »
Homeless shelter crisis reveals unabashed attempt to legitimize inequality
What we have here is an unabashed attempt to legitimize inequality; the rich are rich because they deserve to be, because they’re superior. “Ordinary people,” by contrast, are inferior, and, therefore, deserving of poverty. Their very ordinariness condemns them to minimum wages and unpaid breaks. The homeless, at the bottom of the barrel, are wholly undeserving… The notion that taxes could be a means of redistributing wealth is now considered a socialist heresy.
Tags: budget, disabilities, homelessness, ideology, poverty, standard of living
Posted in Inclusion Delivery System | No Comments »
Alberta’s minimum wage hike working despite gloomy predictions
If an inexpensive meal in a restaurant can only be provided on the backs of people slaving away in the kitchen for next to nothing maybe we should consider a restaurant that charges a bit more. If we really need qualified, caring people to look after our children and our elders shouldn’t we be prepared to pay them what that is worth to us? And what about all those women who keep hotel rooms clean and tidy? Are we getting a good room rate because they don’t earn enough to properly support their families?
Tags: economy, ideology, participation, poverty, standard of living
Posted in Debates | No Comments »
Why a guaranteed minimum income is a better option than raising the minimum wage
Rather than blithely decreeing that employers must pay their employees an amount the rest of us think appropriate, and hoping it all works out for the best, the option is open to us as a society to put our money where our mouths are: to finance a decent minimum income for all with our taxes — which unlike wages are not so easily avoided. Maybe this latest increase in the minimum wage will prove less harmful than feared, but it is certain to be more harmful than the alternative: a minimum income, socially guaranteed and socially financed.
Tags: economy, featured, ideology, poverty, standard of living, tax
Posted in Policy Context | No Comments »
Pick a fight with me Mr. Joyce, not those working the Tim Hortons pickup window
Big businesses and major corporations continue to celebrate record profits, while many people in this province juggle multiple jobs and still can’t afford the basics. CEOs enjoy massive salary increases while their workers can’t pay their bills. That’s not right, and it’s not who we are as a society. It’s past time we put people ahead of profits.
Tags: economy, featured, globalization, ideology, jurisdiction, participation, poverty, standard of living
Posted in Debates | 2 Comments »
Judge rules poverty not a reason to take child away
An impoverished Halifax-area couple have regained custody of their toddler daughter, after a judge declared: “There is a difference between parents who are poor, and poor parents.” The province took the little girl into care in June 2016 because of her parents’ multiple challenges, including mental-health issues, interpersonal conflict and unstable living circumstances brought on by poverty… “It’s in the context of the parents’ accommodations that their poverty is conflated with being poor parents,” said the judge.
Tags: child care, featured, ideology, jurisdiction, poverty, standard of living
Posted in Child & Family Policy Context | No Comments »
Minimum wages can make for maximum consternation
Minimum-wage policies affect about 15 per cent of the workforce, and while forgoing 60,000 jobs by the end of 2019 is not a desirable outcome for our economy, and for younger workers who stand to be hardest hit, it’s not catastrophic in a labour market that created close to 500,000 new jobs last year… None of the preceding is to say that hurriedly jacking Ontario’s minimum wage from $11.60 to $15 in less than two years… was a good idea.
Tags: economy, ideology, participation, poverty, standard of living
Posted in Debates | No Comments »
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