A Welfare 'Savings' Boomerang
Campbell's cuts ended up costing BC taxpayers billions, studies suggest.
Premier Campbell: False economy?
Provincial spending on housing and health care has exploded during Premier Gordon Campbell's second term, and a pair of recent reports suggest that a large part of this ongoing spending may be a direct result of the BC Liberals' 2002 cuts to welfare spending.
A recent study by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives found that welfare recipients who were cut off assistance (as opposed to those who left voluntarily) were likely to become homeless. And another SFU study found that local and provincial taxpayers are now paying an estimated $644 million a year on emergency services for the homeless.
Taken together, these studies suggest that by fueling the growth of B.C.'s homeless population, Premier Campbell's decision to push 107,000 British Columbians off the welfare rolls is now costing local and provincial taxpayers far more than the $581 million that Premier Campbell claims to have saved over three years.
"We are paying more," said Seth Klein, a welfare expert at the CCPA. "But we're paying in different ways. We're paying more through health care. We're paying more through the justice system. We're paying more through all the demands on community services."
And the total cost of Campbell's 2002 welfare cuts could run even higher once health care costs are included.
"We're paying more today, and we will continue to pay more," said Glyn Townson of the BC Persons with AIDS Society. "In fact I think this is the tip of the iceberg."
Off welfare, on to the streets?
In January of 2002, the cash-strapped provincial government launched a plan to trim by 20 per cent of what was then known as the Ministry of Human Resources. (To drive home their welfare-to-work message, the BC Liberals renamed it Ministry of Employment and Income Assistance.)
By June 2005, the government had trimmed B.C.'s welfare caseload by 107,000 people. The ministry's own data disputes the Premier's back-to-work claims.
The government has not tracked how many of those 107,000 British Columbians subsequently became homeless. (Though we do know that 6,065 died.)
But a recently released CCPA study tracked the experiences of 45 welfare recipients from 2004 to 2006. Most of those (48 per cent) remained on assistance at the end of the study; and most of those who left did so voluntarily or temporarily.
Four individuals were cut off assistance during the study, entitled Living on Welfare in BC. Though too small a sample to fairly represent every British Columbian forced off welfare, this group nonetheless presents worrisome implications for B.C. taxpayers:
All four were homeless. Two lived on the streets, and another two were couch surfing. The SFU study determined that homeless individuals cost B.C. taxpayers an average of $55,000 a year.
All four were relying on food banks on a near-daily basis. Since food banks receive most of their donations from food wholesalers and distributors, these donations represents something akin to a hidden tax paid by all grocery consumers.
Most of the men resorted to criminal activities to get money. The costs of common crimes such as shoplifting and burglary also tend to be passed on to consumers.
Many of the women resorted to prostitution to earn money. Three out of four of the women told the CCPA they were HIV positive. Each additional case of HIV costs B.C. taxpayers a projected $750,000 in treatment expenses.
Paying to find them again
Local and provincial taxpayers are now paying an estimated $644 million a year on emergency services for the province's 11,700 homeless people who are both severely addicted and mentally ill, according to an exhaustive study by SFU's Centre for Applied Research in Mental Health and Addiction.
Put bluntly: Welfare pays $7,320 per person per year. Homelessness costs an estimated $55,000 per person per year.
"It's definitely a false economy," Klein said.
But because that cost is spread between various ministries and shared among dozens of local municipalities, it's effectively hidden in plain sight.
BC Housing's budget ballooned to $497 million in fiscal 2006-2007, an increase of 45 per cent over the prior year, and roughly four times what it was in 2001.
The Homeless Outreach Program is among the agency's most successful tools in reducing homelessness; outreach workers have helped bring more than 2,500 British Columbians off the streets since 2006.
No official statistics have been released, but outreach workers across the province report that most of the homeless people they contact were previously on welfare.
Thus the outreach program also represents the most obvious reversal of the BC Liberals' 2002 welfare strategy. The B.C. government is now paying $3.9 million a year to government workers whose job it is to find homeless people and bring them back on the welfare rolls.
$750,000 per infection
The costs that the BC Liberals' cuts to the welfare system may inflict on the provincial health system are even more difficult to project. But here again, the fine print in the recent CCPA study offers a harrowing warning.
One fifth of the women who participated in the CCPA study reported engaging in prostitution at some point during the two-year study. Four of the women reported that their decision to perform survival sex work was a direct result of reductions in their assistance.
All but one of the women engaged in prostitution had hepatitis C, and three were also HIV-positive. Such survival sex workers frequently serve several partners each day, and are less likely to practice safe sex than inside sex workers.
"There are about 2,000 people in B.C. who we know have HIV but are not being treated," said Townson. He also estimated that hepatitis C infects 70 to 80 per cent of the homeless and under-housed in places such as Vancouver's Downtown Eastside.
Each case costs taxpayers a projected $750,000 over the patient's lifetime. If B.C.'s thousands of untreated HIV carriers were to pass on even 775 new cases as a response in part to hardships created by the BC Liberal welfare cuts, the cost of caring for those cases would have erased the $581 million claimed by Campbell.
"Pushing women on to the street is definitely a false economy," Townson said.
"We know how to prevent HIV. We also know how to prevent hepatitis C. But this issue of how poverty might be increasing the infection rate is something that people aren't talking about."
Related Tyee stories:
- 'Welfare to Work' Didn't Work
BC Libs sat on own report showing no real gains. - Up to 15,500 Homeless: Report
Tally of BC homeless by health profs far higher than housing minister's. - Welfare's New Era in BC (series)
The provincial government's tough rules have spawned fear, pain, a little black comedy, and very real tragedy.
![[Tyee]](http://thetyee.cachefly.net/ui/img/ico_fishie.png){kind=small}
Luke Skywalker
30-04-2008
The Welfare Quagmire...
Put bluntly: Welfare pays $7,320 per person per year. Homelessness costs an estimated $55,000 per person per year.
And the poor public policy decision of de-institutionalization from way back when was the root of that problem.
That was the prevailing attitude of governments of both political stripes dating back 15 years ago to 1993 moving forward:
http://web.archive.org/web/20030626190345/http://www.alternatives.com/capp/v-rebick.htm
And several years later in 1997:
http://72.14.253.104/search?q=cache:PylYVnYgwM8J:www.fin.gov.bc.ca/archive/budget98/bgt_spch.htm+%22joy+macPhail%22+welfare+cuts+%221997%22&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=ca
Did it really work? I dunno.
James Burns
30-04-2008
Sublime stupidity
And of course we'll soon see in the comments to this article [OFFENSIVE REFERENCE TO OTHER COMMENTERS REMOVED. -MODERATOR.]advocating yet again the northern BC "work camps" for the homeless.
I always find it amazing that people fail to understand that the most cost effective way to deal with poverty is a guaranteed annual income that provides for all a person's basic needs, along with robust and well funded universal services like health care (including mental health services) and education (including post-secondary). The problems of addiction, disease, mental disorder, and just general poverty, if not treated in a caring equitable manner that seeks to alleviate the problems, not only won't go away, they will metastasize into far greater problems, as desperate people resort to desperate measures to survive.
I simply don't understand why some would rather spend drastically more of society's capital punishing those afflicted through neglect, or worse through active repression. The usual answer of course is that it promotes laziness, and people would simply choose to live off the government teat. Well all the research out there points to something completely different. Robust services and the safety of an income that meets a persons needs, provides far more opportunity for people to take the risks of investing in business and/or greater education so they can increase their income and make a greater contribution to society.
It really boggles my mind, not just the heartlessness, but the truly profound stupidity of the direction of particularly North American governments. Spend more and destroy society in the bargain. Interesting times...
Dungeness_Crab
30-04-2008
Luke, you seem to suggest
Luke, you seem to suggest there is a major difference between the predominant political parties.
I posit the difference is less than you may think. My experience with the Clark NDP in the early 90's opened my eyes signifigantly. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on your POV) it showed me that the ruling class is the only thing that "matters," we proles are but here to serve whomever the ruling party of the day happens to be. Clark, Campbell, it's just a matter of circumstance.
Either way, we're boned. I happen to think the NDP just like to provide us some lube first, unlike Gordo's bunch.
*sigh*
MichaelT
01-05-2008
indeed
this progressive person decries the idiocy of our current policies while mentioning that I am desperately looking to not be homeless - sorta pre-homeless.
looking for full-time career work in Vancouver is not quite as easy as one might think reading the headlines. 10-12/hour cannot pay rent and pay bills and save.
www.michaeltripper.com
I've despaired quite a bit because death seemed better than trying to get on welfare - I've done quickie looking of a buck work including doing a questionnaire in the DTES among social housing folks and their living conditions are awful - dead seemed like a reasonable alternative to this guy as bad as that sounds.
Welfare and the minimum wage need to be tied to both the cost of living and any increases politicians vote for themselves - a 35 percent raise in sitting MLAs salaries? raise welfare and minimum wage by the same percentage...
Fiat lux
01-05-2008
Costs can not be cut, only
Costs can not be cut, only transferred on other sectors, the environment and the future.
Monetary costs are not realities, but often violence induced, temporary perceptions that can not be used for real economic calculations.
All forms of competition increase real costs on account of ever increasing energy demands for lesser and lower benefits, to stay on top, until the system burns out.
The textbook definition of economics is: "The science for the management and distribution of scarce resources". No economic theory in history had ever come close to this definition, all became legalized exploitation, thievery and mass murder, with the idiot twins of communism and capitalism being the worst crimes in history.
With bank deregulation money has become a licence for the control of energy, issued by a special interest sector for its own benefit, transferring the liabilities for the conversion of imaginary capital into resources on the public and the environment.
The main purpose of the stock and money markets is to control and change the physical dimensions of trade goods, stealing from both ends.
Ed Deak. Big Lake.
City Person
01-05-2008
Sorry to hear that
Vancouver is the fifth most expensive city in the world. The writing was on the wall for unskilled labour in the first big post war melt down in 1973. It was really on the wall in the subsequent melt downs in 1979 and 1982 and it is just as prominently displayed now.
Lefties can cry conspiracy and tell us how unfair life is and I agree; life is unfair. Nobody is going to hand you anything on a platter. If you want to have a good life and live in a place like Vancouver, you need a marketable skill. That skill is going to cost you time and money to get but it will have huge payoff down the road.
I have some more news: politicians of every stripe feather their nests. If you tell a sandwich shop it has to raise its wages 50%, it will raise its prices to match. If people can no longer afford to buy said sandwiches, then said shop closes and nobody works. Life sucks, eh?
Want to make a good living? In this day and age, health sciences is the place to be. Good money and absolute job security. There are even student loan forgiveness programmes in several fields. Education will get you ahead, not waiting for the government to raise the minimum wage 50% so the uneducated can "make a living."
G West
01-05-2008
Since 1980
Median income (adjusted for inflation) has remained stagnant. Still the economy has grown and the gap between the rich and the poor and middle class has inexorably widened.
13% of BC's population are mired in poverty while the wealthy flaunt their condos, cars and cash. They don't need the government to raise the minimum wage because they already own the government AND the media.
This is becoming the worst place in Canada - not the best and anyone who denies these truths need only look at the latest release of the Stats Can data from census 2006. It is widely available for anyone who cares more about facts than rhetoric.
I invite respectful comments to my posts here at Tyee.
G West
Budd Campbell
01-05-2008
WELFARE - THE ETERNAL WEDGE ISSUE
For whatever reason welfare policies are a source of constant political chatter by those on either the remote left or the remote right. Even when a booming job market raises employment in almost all occupations, even low skilled occupations, some will claim that it's hard to find work. Similarly, even when the number of people on welfare has declined to a very low level, there are still those claiming there are hordes of lazy people looking for handouts, and that action must be taken.
Clearly, for the politically minded ideologues of both left and right welfare is a touchstone, a litmust test of political purity and a permanent wedge issue that can be dragged out any year, any time, to mobilize the base.
brian gough
01-05-2008
disgusting
campbell and goverment gave themselves big fat pay raises, they also get 21.000.00 dollars a year for housing when the bc legislature is running. What a joke someone on welfare gets 7600.00 a year for everything and goverment gets triple that for part time housing, and considering that there won`t be a fall session this year makes it a bigger joke!---and luke skywalker stop blaming everyone else,this is campbells baby and he is not able to slogan his way out of it.A booming economy and campbell squandered everything, 8 BILLION DOLLARS WORTH OF P3S that we haven`t paid for yet. delibratly left off the books to prop up the budget,a larger debt now then what we had in 2001, the next decade is going to be brutal.
Frank
01-05-2008
City Person
Its also the best. Unless you can think of a better one?
Or we could go with your agenda which is to tell everyone that is working for low wages or unemployed that they're a blight on society, they should have known better than to live here and we're better off without them.
And how is is the strategy of not "throwing" money working out? On my tv there still seem to be lots of images from places in the world where they don't "throw" money at poverty and it doesn't seem to be getting better. Perhaps you have a new way of alleviating poverty that doesn't involve spending money?
I'm detecting an envy of people with education.
Strangely I'm still not seeing an alternative to spending money suggested by you either which seems a wee bit hypocritical in light of the above comment.
CityPerson, show me some new alternatives because the ones in vogue in Dicken's England never worked at all.
This comment is posted under an article about a right-wing gov't imposing an ideological agenda that doesn't work. Yet CityPerson defends it. Delicious.
Frank
01-05-2008
Budd
Yes, poverty is nothing important except to ideologues. I don't know why anyone worries about it when we could instead be spending our valuable time discussing the Port Mann bridge. The importance of that issues makes poverty look pretty small indeed.
realisticman
01-05-2008
OMYGOD
As our resident pastor says,"This is becoming the worst place in Canada". Absolutely! High levels of unemployment, too few homes available so prices have gone up, no free drugs, health care waits and successive governments from the socialist left to the moderate right have pushed people off of the welfare roles in vain attempts to force people off money for nothing schemes. What do they expect, that the able bodied would take responsibility for themselves? Why expect so much? Why demand that people live normal lives? Clearly, it's time to move on and go somewhere else. Get out of this lousy place with nasty governments. Go somewhere nice in Canada. Perhaps Calgary or Toronto has more heart. We should donate travel tickets for these needy souls, so that they can relocate to more compassionate environs and jurisdictions.
We, us comfortable armchair commentators at The Tyee should gather a fund to donate tickets on VIA for our troubled brethren. Perhaps the CCPA would organize it and disperse the tickets?
A word of congratulations to Seth Kline. I see that he now had been deemed an 'expert'; 'Seth Klein, a welfare expert at the CCPA'. I hope there a certificate suitable for framing.
Luke Skywalker
01-05-2008
CCPE v. Fraser Institute
Both of these organizations are ideological, the CCPE on the left and the Fraser Institute on the right.
I generally don't pay much credence to 'em, just as most of society is non-ideological, middle-of-the-road.
Out of curiousity, just reviewed a recent Fraser Institute study on poverty in Canada and according to the Canadian Council on Social Development, "absolute poverty" declined from ~16% in 1973 to ~8% of Canadian households in 2003.
http://tinyurl.com/5vqoof
So what does that mean?
In any event, I guess it all comes down to government priorities.
In that vein, watching Global BCTV news last night was a bit of a surprise when three opposition members were haranguing the government over a policy issue.
Poverty? Nope. Welfare? Homelessness? Nope.
Government inaction on a new roof for BC Place.
City Person
01-05-2008
Toast and Dogma
Dogma on toast can feed the masses. That said:
The main causes of poverty and homelessness in our society are well known to everyone; drugs and mental illness. Giving homeless houses will result in said houses being destroyed for scrap to buy said drugs. Giving them more money will allow them to buy more drugs.
Thus the solution appears to me, anyway, to be a combination of stick and carrot.
Carrot: If you clean up your life, society will provide you treatment and help you attain a decent living.
Stick: If you do not accept treatment, you will be admitted into a facility under section 15 of the mental health act to protect you and society as a whole.
Go have a talk with the people on Hastings Street and see how often you see this echoed. But think tanks, advocates and pundits never ask the people in need because what they hear may not fit preconceived notions.
The problem is political will. There isn't a single political party in any jurisdiction in Canada with the guts to deal with this issue.
Nor will attacking me personally affect anything. I am old enough to know about sticks and stones.
Frank
01-05-2008
Life in la-la land
Wages are down.
From the offices of the BC Liberals, oops, I mean CKNW (always get those two confused).
British Columbians are making less money and there are more low income families.
Over the last 25 years, statistics Canada says BC's median income plunged 11 percent to 42-thousand 230 dollars a year.
Even more alarming, stats can analyst Eric Olson says there are more people living below the low income cut-off.
"14.9 percent in 1980 and 16.7 percent in 2005."
Stats can says the median after-tax income for families is around 57-thousand dollars, which is slightly higher than the national average.
No word yet on whether its because more BCers are doing hard drugs.
Name
01-05-2008
Hot button
I thought this was an important and useful report, despite a few outstanding questions, but it's a bit depressing frankly that most people seem to just have knee-jerk reactions pro or con based on preconceived beliefs and ideologies.
It explains why the goal of evidence-based policy-making is so elusive. Especially on this particular issue of welfare, which seems to elicit a deeply visceral reaction from people either way.
I've long believed that most people ultimately will support policies that they think are in their own interest, which usually means limiting the amount of taxes they have to pay (unless they believe they'd gain more by supporting taxes for services that provide a greater benefit). But some of the comments suggest many people aren't as worried about whether it's ultimately costing them more in taxes, as long as the next guy isn't getting "a free ride" at their expense.
G West
01-05-2008
Thanks
Thanks Monte for another well-researched and documented article.
The sad part is that only Tyee readers will get a chance to read it...with wider dissemination this kind of critique of the Campbell government would go a long way to waking up the people of British Columbia about the way their tax dollars are being wasted even as the lives of between 10% and 20% of their fellow citizens (many of whom are helpless children) are being ruined and sacrificed on the altar of Gordon Campbell’s massive ego.
I always invite respectful comments to my posts at Tyee.
G West
City Person
01-05-2008
Of Course They Do
Of course people vote in their own interest.
This has been the left wing mantra in Canada for as long as I can remember. People are all in favour of big spending as long as someone else pays. Governments get the vast majority of their revenue from Joe and Mary Blow and if there is a big spend comin' they are the ones who are gonna pay.
Equally, governments realised in the late 1980s that direct handouts were a complete waste of time. There had to be a stick and carrot approach. From this came the Canada Child Tax Benefit, one of the best and fairest programmes around, on that keeps hundreds of thousands of children fed.
The decision to hand out, or not hand out money is ultimately political. If people want pols to hand out money to others, they can vote for the party that promises so.
G West
01-05-2008
respectfully, that's nonsense
That the past thirty odd years here in North America have been a complete failure. Real wages are stagnant and virtually all the economic growth which was supposed to raise all boats has instead done little more than fill the already overfull pockets of the top 5% of taxpayers.
The problem certainly does relate to who gets the handouts - the folks who're getting them neither need nor deserve them and the idea that conventional 'neo-con' policies isn't responsible for this is as big a lie as the fascist promises which predated the conflagration of the 20th century.
If any moderately intelligent person in this country thinks that the child tax benefit has had any substantive contribution to the amelioration of poverty in this country then there really is no hope. Such people need to spend some time actually living the way the poor live.
In fact, given Premier Campbell's nonsensical reaction to the fact that BC is the economic embarrassment of the nation in the light of today’s Stats Can figures indicates that he suffers from exactly the same problem.
I always invite respectful comments to my posts at Tyee.
G West
Frank
01-05-2008
Vote in one's interest
I don't believe people vote in their own interests. Too many seem to vote in the interests of those they get their information from.
I always find it amusing that so many are willing to defend the interests of those they have no connection with. Why?
After all, if I'm the wealthiest guy in BC I'm probably going to do something smart like own the media and hire people that will tell the hoi poloi how hard I have it. I don't think those who do own the media are stupid, but people like to think they are.
Frank
01-05-2008
The system gets an "F"
There's several issues here. One is obviously that treating people on welfare like dirt and cutting them off of benefits is not only both heartless and at odds with the way we like to see ourselves, it is also terrible economics as it increases the costs on society by about 7 times.
Two, is that in spite of falling unemployment, poverty is increasing. And (just for Budd) note that poverty is increasing in spite of the amount of public money being spent on roads, bridges, the Olympics etc.
Three, is that even those working are seeing their income fall by varying amounts over the period studied, 25 years. Yet in Ontario income increased.
In the years 2000 to 2005 BC and Quebec were the only two provinces to record a decline, a whopping 3.4% in BC's case and only 0.3% in Quebec's. This occurred in spite of tax cuts, increased business activity and a higher GDP. Why?
Remember this article from the Sun entitled "Business wants a free market except when it comes to wages"?
http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/editorial/story.html?id=7219cc4a-aa33-49e3-9f04-bfd397a1b921
brian gough
01-05-2008
four staight years soon to be five
A chance to play david letterman for a moment.
bc leads the country in child poverty 25% for 4 straight years soon to 5 (7% in newfoundland)
highest transit fares in north america
most expensive rental property in canada
most expensive real estate in canada
highest percentage of homelessness in canada
highest fuel prices in canada for a large city
tied for lowest minimum wage in canada
seventh lowest spending in canada on health care ( % to gdp)
first place in canada for--property crime-car theft-bank robberies-murder rate--violent crime
You think the least this bunch could do is keep food banks stocked,no child in canada should go hungry.
Thanks gordon(the gargler)canpbell ...its the best place on earth
Cynic
02-05-2008
I'd like to point out that
I'd like to point out that money is loaned into existence by the private banks, they loan only the principal but demand principal plus interest in repayment. The ratio of debt to money supply is 3 to 1. This is the cause of poverty. There is no shortage of resources, intelligence, skill, food, or anything else that can end poverty. Ignorance of the banking system keeps us mired in fruitless debates. Why do we live our lives controlled by numbers?
Fiat lux
02-05-2008
I was away yesterday and
I was away yesterday and now, reading over the postings, the one thing that sticks out like a sore thumb, as usual, are the people who keep on referring to "lefties" and "left wingers", clueless, mouthing the usual, silly, memorized, propaganda garbage, like "marketable skills" etc.
The same braindead slogans used by all fundamentalist religions: "You're not one of us, so you don't count! It is written,.....!!!!!"
Even,if and when, they claim to have some, so called, education, which means nothing. Some of the most ignorant people I've met in the highest positions had diplomas hanging on their walls, but had no idea of what was going on in the world, outside the narrow tunnels they were existing in.
As far our dear Premier is concerned, the man, and much of his caucus, are completely out of touch, living in an ideologically brainwashed, dreamworld.
All they can think about is this blasted Olympic, showbiz racket, and to slavishly follow orders for the sale of BC, given to them by the Fraser Inst. and Tom d'Aquino, Canada's unelected PM for the past 20 years.
Ed Deak.
SharingIsGood
02-05-2008
cynic's borrowed money
Borrowed money is used to finance construction of condos, costs are passed on to consumers. Profits go to developers and bankers who then get reduced taxes. The developers donate heavily to their political party of choice. One huge leaky condo developer/donater gets a huge award for being such a fine citizen. Where are the awards for the voluntary foot soldiers who work in the food banks and on the streets? Humanitarian Vancouver condo developer - now there's an oxymoron!
I am posting this seemingly unrelated link because that's the way I see the Campbell government in terms of how it deals with the needs of British Columbians. They are (and always have been) disconnected from the needs of the average British Columbian. When was the last time Campbell was available to any person/group of people who was not on an invitation-only list. When he shows up in a community to announce some spending to make it look like he is doing something, the only people there are Liberal Party insiders and the Liberal-friendly media.
http://blog.myleakycondo.com/index.php?op=Default&Date=20070529&blogId=1060
NoLeftNutter
02-05-2008
sample sizes
Those sample sizes may be fine for speculating about the outcome of an election or the chance of success of a new laundry soap but hardly of the measure that should direct social policy.
City Person
02-05-2008
Why a decline?
There is no doubt real wages for the working class have decline since 1980, while the higher classes have increased. This at a time where overall wealth in Canada and the world has increased massively.
The reason is actually pretty simple. There was an anomaly between approximately 1940-1970, where unskilled people could demand and receive high wages. I grew up in the heyday of this period. I can't recall how many people called me "square" and "stupid" for not quitting school and going to work in the bush. I drove a Datsun when gas was fifty cents a gallon.
In the early 70s it all began to unravel and by the 1982 crash it was obvious the writing was on the wall. Yet all over small town BC, people still quit school to work in the mill. I remember people telling me that the union would guarantee a job in the forest industry for life, so why get an education?
Now we are 25 years after "Operation Solidarity" and where are we? The unskilled are losing out while the skilled are gaining. And I still see it, small town kids not getting an education and then bellyaching about being broke. The message should be loud and clear by now:
You can't make a good living without a marketable skill. It can be any skill. Trades are excellent and many employers will pay your tuition. You can get 100% student loan remission on may health sciences careers. Going to school is still harder than working. Perhaps that is why people do not go to school?
That fact will always remain. People can whine, complain and ideologize, but this simple fact will still remain. One cannot expect to live in the fifth most expensive city in the world without a marketable skill because there are lots of people, from all over the world, who do have marketable skills. No government can change that.
The day of choppin' down trees, drinkin' draft, livin' in a big house and buyin' a new pickup every three years, and a camper to go with it, are over. They really only lasted a short time.
But if you are trying to live on $10 an hour, upgrading your skills will help a lot more, and have more immediate results, than waiting for government to make your life better.
But then again, reality sucks.
James Burns
02-05-2008
how to spin it?
What a laugh. Today all the papers are reporting on the abysmal performance economically for most Canadian incomes over the last 25 years, and specifically in the span between 1980 and 2005. Yes we can thank right-wing monetary policy economics, the Milton Friedman school of utter economic stupidity (unless you're rich), something none of the papers appear to want to highlight.
BC has fared far worse, with an actual decline in income, with the only period seeing an income increase being when the NDP were in power! YOWZA! How's that for an economic mind *uck for all the crony capitalists out there? Of course it's not the fault of the Milty-ites who set economic policy in this country... no, no it's just that Canadians are collectively too lazy. If they read a few more books, got themselves a better edjumacation, yanked up those bootstraps and went out there and finagled a slice of the governmental handout of public assets and tax bucks to corporate entities... well they'd be sitting pretty, shoehorned right into that top 5% who've seen their incomes increase by 20% or more over the last decade or two.
Let's pretend not to notice that the times our economy grew the fastest, and incomes for all Canadians increased the most, were the post-war period of the 50s and 60s when government actually felt a responsibility to manage our market economy in the interests of the public, and not simply a select wealthy elite. shhhhh.
http://www.canada.com/victoriatimescolonist/news/story.html?id=29db32ae-14c3-4857-b69f-be022d3d1fee&k=38528
Luke Skywalker
02-05-2008
James Burns
Well not exactly. You do understand the concept of after-tax income?
http://tinyurl.com/5lhz8o
And in terms of the Proportion of Families and Unattached Individuals Living Below the Low Income Cut-Off (1996-2004)
[The Low Income Cut-Off (LICO) is a measure produced by Statistics Canada to determine income thresholds at which a family would typically spend 20% more of its income than the average family to meet basic needs (food, shelter and clothing).]
BC's figure decreased from ~22% in 1997 to 18% in 2004.
http://www.shim.bc.ca/atlases/fbc/ss3/graphs/Income_Low_Large.jpg
City Person
02-05-2008
James, you make good points.
James, if people such as yourself choose not to get an education, they are free to do so. However, there is plenty of empirical evidence that shows very clearly that the higher one's level of education, the higher one's income.
That is indeed very true as we transition from a resource based economy to an information based economy. Unfortunately, some people still have not caught on to this.
Thus, you can choose to complain or choose to act in your best interest. Perhaps complaining is in your best interest and will accomplish the goals you desire.
James Burns
02-05-2008
Spin the numbers
Again luke the key word in your quotes is average income. The figures change when the wealthiest, who had pretty much all the gains, are factored out.
The median (not average) income went from $47,605 in 1980 to $42,230 in 2005 (I'm assuming 2005 dollars here, although the article I linked to doesn't specify). That is an 11.3% decline. The poor almost certainly faired the worst, they usually do.
Your numbers are designed to hide the losses to income most people in BC have had to bear.
Luke Skywalker
02-05-2008
James...
Conversely:
And the Proportion of Families and Unattached Individuals Living Below the Low Income Cut-Off threshold in BC decreased from ~22% in 1997 to 18% in 2004.
Those are Statistics Canada's own figures.
As for wage rates, this report from six months ago entitled "B.C. wages on the rise in most sectors: report" co-relates with the record low unemployment rates.
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/british-columbia/story/2007/10/05/bc-wage.html
James Burns
02-05-2008
Quote:James, if people such
LOL! What makes you think I don't have an education, or that I don't believe it's worthwhile? Because I disagree with your ideological foolishness? CP, for someone advocating education, you come up with some remarkably ignorant assumptions.
An education is a guarantee of nothing. It can help with income, but as the trends for outsourcing and the use of temporarily imported workers increase, it will get ever easier to make use of highly educated cheap foreign labour.
I don't see my interests in an individualist vacuum. Sure my immediate financial interests are served by low taxes. But a healthy society at all income levels is desirable because it is safer, happier, and in the long run far more economically sustainable.
James Burns
02-05-2008
Luke
Or stayed stagnant from 1995 to 2004 at 18%. While of course increasing dramatically in urban centers.
What's more core inflation has remained relatively low, but only because it includes rarely purchased big ticket items, while costs for food, fuel, shelter and capital (loans), have increased dramatically, particularly in the Lower Mainland. A median income increase that doesn't factor inflation is meaningless.
Keep massaging those numbers luke.
Luke Skywalker
02-05-2008
James
Or stayed stagnant from 1995 to 2004 at 18%. While of course increasing dramatically in urban centers.
Well, the figure had increased to ~22% in 1997 under the New Democrats.
And the figure for "urban centre" (Vancouver) was at ~27% in 1997 decreasing to ~21% in 2004.
Harks back to neo-liberal governance by both the New Democrats and the Liberals.
Even when we elect social democratic or liberal parties into government, we get neoliberal governance.
http://www.rabble.ca/reviews/review.shtml?x=70827
brian gough
02-05-2008
GET REAL
luke skywalker --I notice you keep saying (FAMILY ) income , any gains at all is because mom and dad are working and probably lots of overtime
The other fact you or anyone has failed to mention,is that existing home owners from the 80s and 90s and even earlier decades have used their home equity as ATMS.
The (real) truth of the matter is most havn`t kept up, higher debt loads,and without home equity that hundreds of thousands of bcers have used to prop themselves up!
Thats exactly whats been happening in the USA, which of course has now imploded and reaking havoc and thrusting millions into poverty, and only a fool would think its not going to happen here. Its just a matter of a few years and everyone who bought these over inflated homes are going to have upside down mortgages (thats when you owe 600.000.00 and now your home is worth 300.000.00)
Good luck luke skywalker trying to convince a POOR MAN that he`s really rich
Cynic
02-05-2008
Another thing I'd like to
Another thing I'd like to point out is the false notion of elite incompetence that is evident in many of the comments here. Our rulers are not stupid. The fraudulent issuance of the means of exchange is not a mistake. The "scarce resources" paradigm is the result of brilliant management of perceptions, not reality. As I said earlier, there is no shortage of anything we need to end poverty. But when we are told "the numbers don't work", we believe it. (Note the root: numb...) Not enough money. We have everything else we need, but the numbers on the computer screen, in the bankers' database, are the wrong ones. Sorry.