I was reading up on poverty reduction policies and I came across a paragraph by Dalhousie University economics professor Lars Osberg that was just begging to be shared and discussed on PolicyNote:
Entries Tagged as 'Poverty, inequality & welfare'
Do we need a business case for poverty reduction?
August 25th, 2010 · Iglika Ivanova · 3 Comments · Poverty, inequality & welfare
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Marc’s Summer Reading
July 22nd, 2010 · Marc Lee · No Comments · Agriculture, Climate change, Economy, Environment, resources & sustainability, Poverty, inequality & welfare, Recommended reading
With summer comes a lightening of my work load, so I’ve finally found some time to dive into a few interesting books. These are all related to my ongoing research interests (I do have some fiction sitting around waiting for a real holiday, with Barbara Kingsolver’s The Lacuna at the top of the pile): The [...]
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Gas prices and consumption: BC vs Pacific Northwest
July 12th, 2010 · Marc Lee · No Comments · Climate change, Energy, Poverty, inequality & welfare, Taxes
On a weekend getaway to Washington state, I was alarmed at how much cheaper gas prices are south of the border. Typically, we paid $3 per gallon, whereas the price in Vancouver upon our return was $1.16 per litre, which is $4.39 per gallon (with the exchange rate roughly parity over the weekend). This is [...]
Will the HST boost job growth and when?
July 6th, 2010 · Iglika Ivanova · No Comments · Economy, Employment & labour, Poverty, inequality & welfare, Taxes
As BC and Ontario have now started paying the HST at the till, many people may be wondering when exactly can we expect to see those jobs postings opening up. This is a good question. According to analysis commissioned by the BC government from economist Jack Mintz, titled British Columbia’s Harmonized Sales Tax: A Giant [...]
On the economic impacts of the HST
July 5th, 2010 · Iglika Ivanova · No Comments · Economy, Employment & labour, Poverty, inequality & welfare, Taxes
My previous HST post focused on the impact of the tax on households and I concluded that it’s likely that it will cost families and that some modest income families will be hurt by the tax. Is this sufficient reason to campaign for the tax to be repealed? Not necessarily. Public policy is about choices [...]
British Medical Journal links social spending cuts to increased mortality
June 29th, 2010 · Keith Reynolds · 2 Comments · Health care, Poverty, inequality & welfare
An article and an editorial in this week’s British Medical Journal outline the very high cost of cutting social programs. The article’s authors look at social spending in the OECD and find changes in social spending directly related to changes in mortality. Even more, they find the impact of social spending on health to be [...]
Tags: health·spending cuts
The HST and BC family budgets
June 24th, 2010 · Iglika Ivanova · 9 Comments · Poverty, inequality & welfare, Taxes
That the HST will take a bite out of family budgets is clear to everyone. The main question right now is just how big of a bite. Two studies released earlier this week asked this exact question but came to very different conclusions. On Monday, the Fraser Institute released a paper arguing that lower and [...]
Tags: HST
A new era for measuring poverty in Canada
June 18th, 2010 · Iglika Ivanova · 1 Comment · Poverty, inequality & welfare, Transparency & accountability
Last Thursday’s Statistics Canada release of individual and household income data for 2008 marks a new era in the study of poverty in Canada. Instead of reporting only on the Low Income Cut Offs (LICO), as they used to, Statistics Canada reported on three of the most common measures of low income in the same [...]
Tags: data availability·low income·measurement·Statistics Canada
Poverty reduction: What other provinces are doing
June 8th, 2010 · Seth Klein · No Comments · Children & youth, Poverty, inequality & welfare
BC has much to learn from other provinces when it comes to poverty reduction. Six provinces now have poverty reduction plans, although most are still fairly new, and therefore we don’t yet have data to tell us what kind of success they are meeting with, the exceptions being Quebec and Newfoundland. What their plans and [...]
View from the Top: Income Inequality in BC
June 2nd, 2010 · Marc Lee · 1 Comment · Economy, Poverty, inequality & welfare
A fascinating, and shocking, literature on the incomes at the very top of the distribution has emerged in recent years. Typically, Statistics Canada only reports income distributions for quintiles, or 20% groupings, and occasionally deciles, or 10% groupings. But new research based on tax filing has shown that the real action has been at the [...]
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