Click the infographic below to enlarge, and read the related report here.
An examination of income inequality in North America reveals that Mexico is the only part of the continent where the middle class has been gaining from growth, according to a new study by internationally respected economist Lars Osberg, Dalhousie University professor and CCPA Research Associate.
Mexico’s middle class has benefited from urbanization, greater female employment, improved education and better social programs. Although similar trends in Canada and the U.S. maintained growth in middle class incomes until the 1970s, Osberg says, they have since run out of steam. Globalization, technological advances, a drop in unionized work, and a deregulated labour market have contributed to stagnant real incomes for most in Canada and the U.S. since the 1980s.
Meanwhile, income growth at the top has accelerated in both Canada and the U.S.
Read the full study, Instability Implications of Increasing Inequality, and share our infographic comparing the Three Amigos.
Due to the opaque reporting methods used by the federal government to detail its spending and employment projections, getting a clear picture of core public service job losses is unnecessarily complicated. However, CCPA Senior Economist David Macdonald has analyzed data from recently released 2012-13 Reports on Plans and Priorities (RPP) as well as the 2012 federal budget to assess the impact of several rounds of spending cuts on federal employment.
The report, Clearing Away the Fog: Government Estimates of Job Losses, finds that the total number of federal core public service job losses over the next three years will be 29,600—far more than the 19,200 estimate that is now commonly cited. The Departments of National Defence, Human Resources and Skills Development Canada, and Public Works and Government Services Canada will be particularly hard hit.
The analysis also notes that a significant number of positions at Crown corporations, non-profit agencies, and private sector firms who do business with the government outside of the core public service will also be lost, although it is difficult to determine just how many.
Click here to read the full report.
Over the last 30 years, the CCPA has provided alternative research and analysis that have been indispensable in exposing the corporate agenda. I don’t know what I’d have done without them.
— Judy Rebick