Things are moving quite fast, even too fast, since the federal government’s first poverty reduction strategy was published in August, at least for the aspects of this strategy which are problematic. The unilateral decision to consider the Market Basket Measure (MBM) as “Canada’s Official Poverty Line” is one of those.
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The Progressive Economics Forum: How to Measure and Monitor Poverty? LIM vs LICO vs MBM.
The federal government has promised to launch a Canadian Poverty Reduction Strategy in the coming weeks or months on the basis of now completed consultations with Canadians and the still ongoing deliberations of an advisory committee. As part of this process, there has been discussion about which poverty or low
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Gimme shelter: is Core Housing Need a useful measure?
For a new CCPA blog post on housing (un)affordability, I dove into the latest Census data for Metro Vancouver. I used two series on shelter cost and shelter-to-income ratio, and found that 32% of households were paying more than 30% of income on shelter (all households, owners and renters) and
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Income and geographic distribution of low-income renters in Toronto
In this second of a series of housing-related posts I analyze the income and geographic distribution of renter-occupied households in the City of Toronto. My first post focussed on affordability and inequality trends by analyzing time series (2001-16) data for Ontario by household income quintiles. As a complement, this blog
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Enumerating Homeless Persons
Over at the web site of the Calgary Homeless Foundation, I’ve written a blog post titled “Ten things to know about Canadian attempts to count homeless persons through Point-in-Time Counts.” Points I raise in the post include the following: -Efforts to enumerate homeless persons in Canada often have mixed objectives.
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Job Vacancies
Congratulations to Statscan on the occasion of the first release from the National Job Vacancy and Wage Survey, with data for the first quarter of this year. The survey received funding from HRSDC to put some hard numbers on job vacancies, and the first tranche of data are impressively granular,
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Self-Employment Masks Job Loss
Statistics Canada reported today that employers cut the number of employees by 98,000 in August, which was largely masked by 87,000 more Canadians identifying themselves as self-employed. As a result, the headline level of “employment” – which includes self-employment – was little changed. Self-employment ranges from high-income professionals to people
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Revised LFS Numbers Don’t Change the Big Picture
What a rough week it’s been over at Statistics Canada. It’s a world-renowned statistical agency — though its lustre has been tarnished in recent years by budget cuts, cancelled data programs and series, and the nonsense of the Harper government’s libertarian crusade against the long form census. The problems this
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: EI Falls as Unemployment Rises
Statistics Canada reported today that the number of people receiving Employment Insurance (EI) benefits fell by 12,070 in May – the largest drop in nearly two years. (The last time Statistics Canada records indicate a larger decrease was 12,670 in July 2012.) This substantial decline in EI benefits comes as
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: More People Chase Fewer Jobs
Further to Angella’s excellent analysis: Statistics Canada reported today that unemployment jumped by 25,700 in June because of shrinking employment and a growing labour force. Canada’s labour force expanded because of population growth, even though the participation rate did not increase. The combination of less employment and a larger working-age
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Jobs Up, But Hours Flat
On the surface, today’s employment numbers simply continue a recent trend: employers added some jobs but not enough to keep pace with Canada’s growing labour force. As a result, unemployment edged back up to 7%. But just below the surface were some even worse developments. Employers actually cut 29,000 full-time
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Huge Jump in Ontario EI Claims
Statistics Canada reported today that the number of Canadians filing Employment Insurance (EI) claims rose by 10,350 or 4.5 per cent in March, the largest monthly increase since the start of 2013. This national increase was driven by a jump of 9,480 or 12.9 per cent in Ontario, the largest
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Labour Market Data Sitting on a Shelf
The Globe and Mail reports that the results of the Workplace Survey have sat on a shelf for two years due to cuts at Statistics Canada and a lack of funding from Employment and Social Development Canada. This, while the Minister for ESDC says that Canada’s labour market information is inadequate and “we
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Flaherty’s Legacy: Ideological, reckless and just plain lucky
This piece was originally published at the Globe and Mail’s online Report on Business feature, EconomyLab. There are two reasons why it is difficult to comment on the legacy of a finance minister. 1) It is a tremendously challenging job, anywhere, any time. Stewarding one of the largest economies
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: StatCan Reports Fewest Vacant Jobs on Record
Statistics Canada reported today that there were only 199,700 vacant jobs in December 2013, the fewest recorded since it first reported these figures for March 2011. Statistics Canada began tracking job vacancies in response to claims of a labour shortage by governments and corporate Canada. But the number of vacancies
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Canada’s Job Market: Slower, Lower, Weaker
The following commentary on yesterday’s job numbers is quoted in today’s National Post (page FP4): The Olympic motto may be “Faster, Higher, Stronger,” but Canada’s employment growth is slower, lower and weaker going into the winter games. Of the 29,000 Canadians who supposedly gained employment in January, 28,000 reported being
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Canada’s Luxury Index is through the roof
Numbers season is over but good inequality data is still missing. January sees us regularly bombarded with a whole range of economic statistics about the previous year. GDP growth: likely 1.7%, low but looking brighter for next year. Unemployment: 7.2%, low but lots of workers leaving the job market altogether
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Dutch Disease, Prices and Wages in Saskatchewan
Jim Stanford recently pointed out that many of the conservative economists who had defended the overvalued loonie have quickly shifted to applauding its depreciation. The Government of Saskatchewan may be making a similar conversion on the road to Damascus. When federal NDP leader Tom Mulcair expressed concern about Dutch disease,
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: 2013 Left Us Wanting More … Jobs
The December jobs report was a spectacular finish (not in a good way) to a rather discouraging year for the Canadian labour market. When the dust had settled, it turned out that employment growth averaged 8,500 per month in 2013, compared with 25,900 in 2012. This anaemic job growth was not enough to keep up with the growth in
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: StatCan Debunks Small-Business Mythology
Canadian economic commentators often worship small business as the supposed source of economic dynamism and growth. This cult of small business has greatly influenced public policy, with federal and provincial governments giving huge tax preferences to small corporations. But new Statistics Canada research finds: “The gap between the levels of
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