The Canadian dream?: 25 YEARS: 53 BUCKS
Society has made great strides in the past generation - just not in wealth creation. The median income in 1980 was $41,348. In 2005, it was a mere $41,401.
globe & mail May 2, 2008
Income-stalled and going nowhere. That’s the news the vast majority of Canadian workers got from Statistics Canada yesterday - a portrait of a 25-year-long stagnancy in their earnings and scant indication anything is about to change.
The final data released from the 2006 census showed the median earnings of full-time Canadian workers had increased to $41,401 in 2005 from $41,348 in 1980 - only about $1 a week more, measured in constant dollars.
In British Columbia it was worse: Median earnings actually fell 11.3 per cent between 1980 and 2005, the steepest slide in the country and something Statscan officials were at a loss to explain.
In addition to income stagnation, the census data, as predicted, revealed the income gap between rich and poor is widening, young people entering the labour market are earning less than their parents did a generation ago and immigrant incomes are plummeting.
Over the quarter century of census data tracked by Statscan, the incomes of the richest Canadians increased by 16.4 per cent while incomes of the poorest fell by 20.6 per cent.
The data also showed a rise in the proportion of Canada’s youngest children living below the poverty line, a factor attributed to the declining incomes of immigrants and young native-born men at the family formation stage of their lives.
In a country built on the expectation of financial progress from generation to generation, the Macpherson family of Burlington, Ont., shows how that theory has smacked into a wall.
Jennifer Macpherson’s grandfather, Gus, went to work without completing high school and eventually worked his way up to management in a financial institution. Her father, Craig, had no problem finding full-time work after completing two years of college.
Ms. Macpherson, about to turn 22, has just completed a film, communications and popular culture degree at Brock University, but she suspects she’ll need a master’s degree to get a good job, and that she’ll be forced to work while trying to upgrade her education. Meanwhile, grown-up luxuries her father and grandfather had at her age don’t even register on her radar.
J.J. Stiles, 34, of Toronto, a single mother of two with a university degree, a diploma in broadcast journalism and a certificate to teach English as a second language, has found herself in an administrative job paying just over $37,000.
Armine Yalnizyan, senior economist for the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives who has studied income inequality for the past several years, said she was surprised by the continuing income decline for immigrants and young people “because in 2005 we’re at almost the tail end of a decade of strong economic growth, the strongest we’ve seen in 40 years, low inflation, low interest rates, low unemployment, strong economic growth and people are worse off than they were in the 1980s and 1990s, which were recession plagued decades.
“You’d think that with a tight labour market that the opportunities would increase for young people under 35 and for newcomers. But that just doesn’t seem to be the case.”
Tony Frost of University of Western Ontario’s Richard Ivey School of Business was also surprised by some of the data.
“I’d thought the rich are getting richer and the middle is not getting richer as fast,” he said. “But what these data show is that the middle are not getting richer at all.
“For me, the big story here is not just that there’s inequality growing. We knew that. But that the middle income earner is flat-lining over a long period of time - that’s stunning to me.”
University of Toronto labour economist Harry Krashinsky attributed some of the stagnancy to the decline in unionized jobs and to workers’ concomitant loss of leverage in the labour market.
But there is also, he said, a significant demographic factor - the progress of the aging baby boomers through the work force, conservatively clutching onto their jobs and not moving around. Once the baby boomers start retiring, Prof. Krashinsky said, at least some of the negative elements in the labour market should self-correct.
Not all labour economists agree that a demographic fix is in the offing. Many see systemic changes in the labour market that point to continuing unstable employment with low-paying and part-time or temporary jobs.
NEW ECONOMIC ISSUES FOR NATIVES
Census data showing that a majority of Canada’s native people now live in cities and away from their traditional lands present governments and aboriginal communities with a tough new set of policy issues, experts told a conference on aboriginal economic advancement yesterday.
University of Victoria law professor John Borrows, a member of Ontario’s Chippewas of Nawash First Nation, said the new reality of aboriginal habitation means that “to look at the nation in a reserve context is very narrow.”
He said new and pragmatic ways need to be found to enable natives to invest in land off the reserve that will allow them to “grow their territory and imagine themselves reoccupying their territory.”
The one-day conference, initiated by former prime minister Paul Martin, was held at the University of Toronto’s faculty of law.
Aboriginal lawyers and academics from across the country outlined the legal and financial obstacles native communities face in getting access to capital to start off-reserve enterprises and reach out to community members now living in cities.
Michael Valpy
The way it is with wages
MEDIAN EARNINGS
median incomes increased a meagre 0.1% between 1980 and 2005 nationally, but soared in Nunavut and NWT, where gold, nickel, copper and diamond finds have spurred massive investment.
Median earnings, by province, using 2005 constant dollars for full-time wage earners (excluding the self-employed):
1980 2005 Change CANADA $41,348 $41,401 0.1% Nfld. $37,510 $37,429 -0.2% PEI $32,405 $34,140 5.4% N.S. $36,532 $36,917 1.1% N.B. $36,436 $35,288 -3.2% Que. $39,938 $37,722 -5.5% Ont. $41,395 $44,748 8.1% Man. $37,247 $36,692 -1.5% Sask. $38,804 $35,948 -7.4% Alta. $43,732 $43,964 0.5% B.C. $47,605 $42,230 -11.3% Yukon $52,942 $49,787 -6.0% NWT $50,353 $60,119 19.4% Nunavut $46,140 $58,088 25.9% THE INCOME GAP
New immigrants are now at a bigger disadvantage than at any time in the past two and a half decades, with university-educated men and women earning less than half of what their Canadian-born counterparts earn.
Median earnings, for recent immigrants, using 2005 constant dollars for full-time wage earners (excluding the self-employed):
RECENT IMMIGRANT EARNERS 1980 2005
Males with university degree $48,541 $30,332
Females with university degree $24,317 $18,969
Males without university degree $36,467 $24,470
Females without university degree $18,548 $14,233
CANADIAN-BORN EARNERS
Males with university degree $63,040 $62,556
Females with university degree $41,241 $44,545
Males without university degree $43,641 $40,235
Females without university degree $21,463 $25,590
WEALTHIEST COMMUNITIES
Top 10 communities (population 10,000 or more) with the highest median family income in Canada in 2005:
Community Median before-tax family income 1 Wood Buffalo, Alta. $129,932 2 Westmount, Que. $127,743 3 Mont-Royal, Que. $114,214 4 Rocky View, Alta. $113,321 5 Yellowknife $112,608 6 Beaconsfield, Que. $107,626 7 Oakville, Ont. $105,563 8 West Vancouver, B.C. $105,448 9 Kirkland, Que. $104,306 10 King Township, Ont. $102,006 THE GLOBE AND MAIL; SOURCE: STATISTICS CANADA