Recession - Who is Sharing the Shared Sacrifice?

Income inequality in Canada is widening as the rich get richer and poor and middle-income Canadians get poorer, says the Conference Board of Canada, one of the country’s leading think tanks on business issues
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“While the poor are minimally better off in an absolute sense, they are significantly worse off in a relative sense,” said Board president Anne Golden.

The report notes that in 1976, average income was $51,100; by 2009 it was $59,700—an increase of 17 per cent over 33 years, after adjusting for inflation. But average income does not necessarily reflect how the majority of people are doing; instead, some analysts suggest using median income—the income level that divides the group into two equal parts. Median income grew by only 5.5 per cent over the same period. The average income level of the poorest group of people in Canada increased—after taxes and transfers and after adjusting for inflation—but only marginally, from $12,400 in 1976 to $14,500 in 2009. However, the gap between the real average income of the richest group (the top quintile) of Canadians and the poorest group (the lowest quintile) grew from $92,300 in 1976 to $117,500 in 2009. Between 2007 and 2009, seven out of ten provinces experienced a rise in their low-income rates. Between 2006 and 2009, nearly 128,000 more seniors were said to be living in low income, of whom 70 per cent were women.

The most commonly used measure of income inequality is the Gini index. which calculates how the distribution of income among individuals within a country deviates from an exactly equal distribution (a Gini index of 0 means that every person in the society has the same amount of income; whereas, 1 would indicate that one person has all the income). Canada's 2009 Gini index (0.32) means that 32 per cent of Canada's national income would need to be redistributed in order to have a country that was completely equal in terms of income. In 1986 it was 0.28.

Of course, it is argued that top executives are making millions because they’re possessed of a unique genius that enriches their companies, and thereby all of society. But are they really? What of the huge incomes earned by corporate bosses who actually run their firms into the ground? Overseas tax havens enable companies to pretend their profits are earned in other countries like the Cayman Islands.


Looking for work? Unemployed need not apply.
Meanwhile in the United States, in 2009, 43.6 million people were living in poverty in America; and just off the presses, the June employment numbers revealed that 9.2 percent of Americans are facing unemployment -- that is more than 14 million people. According to a New York Times report, it will take an average of nine months for most of these people to find a job. Add to that the many people who are not among the 9.2 percent -- those who have just given up. They are in such hopeless straits that they are not even seeking jobs.

Who is to blame? The younger generation of workers, according to Alan Greenspan, former Fed Reserve head honcho. "[Baby boomers] are being replaced by groups of young workers who have regrettably scored rather poorly in international educational match-ups over the last two decades. The average income of U.S. households headed by 25-year-olds and younger has been declining relative to the average income of the baby boomer population. This is a reasonably good indication that the productivity of the younger part of our workforce is declining relative to the level of productivity achieved by the retiring baby boomers. This raises some major concerns about the productive skills of our future U.S. labor force." The bad U.S. economy is the fault of the lazy stupid youthful work force!

Employment experts say they believe companies are increasingly interested only in applicants who already have a job. Adverts for job vacancies include restrictions such as "unemployed candidates will not be considered" or "must be currently employed." Even if companies don't spell out in a job listing that they won't consider someone who currently doesn't have a job, experts said that unemployed applicants are typically ruled out.

"Most executive recruiters won't look at a candidate unless they have a job, even if they don't like to admit to it," said Lisa Chenofsky Singer, a human resources consultant "They think you must have been laid off for performance issues...Making that kind of automatic cut is senseless...they have no appreciation of the crisis we're in right now."

Capitalism is never at fault for anything!!