We are hearing from more and more news reports that certain cities that young, upwardly mobile professionals are increasingly getting locked out of the housing market, without help from parents or winning a lottery of sorts. This is particularly true of Vancouver and Toronto.. We are learning that political authorities have been trying various measures to "cool" the hot housing markets where there is this difficulty, such as imposing a tax on foreign investors or a vacancy tax. Younger people are still buying, but further afield from their workplaces, thus amounting to a longer commute for them to go to work each day (and thus contributing to the congestion problem).
At the other end of the market, we are talking to people who have purchased homes perhaps in the last few years, but can no longer afford to stay in them. This is particularly true of seniors, as pensions are diminishing and forcing more and more elders into poverty, or due to health issues that such seniors cannot afford to cover the costs for (e.g. home care, accessibility renovations). Low income persons in their own homes are also impacted by higher costs and stagnant benefits. With the removal of the Home Repair Benefit that used to assist at least on ODSP to perform necessary repairs in their home has been cut, leaving only loans and discretionary programs that rely on geography and even then, on the whims of the region or county one lives in. There has been a substantial hike in the number of low income persons, including assistance recipients and seniors, who cannot afford to repair leaky roofs, heating systems, electrical system, etc. In my own practice, I've represented such persons who were essentially threatened with an unsafe building order when it was learned that these people were living in such states of disrepair. Unfortunately, my region thinks the only solution is for these folks to live in shelters, where their health will decline quickly.
At the very lower end of the spectrum, people are only seeking rental housing at a reasonable cost. For those on social assistance, there is nowhere in Ontario they can live and stay within their allotted shelter allowance without having to take the majority of their "basic needs" benefit to cover their shelter costs. Average rents across Canada and Ontario have been rising, not falling. Yet social assistance rates have been falling further and further behind the costs of everyday items. The only other options for such folks is to get on the wait list for social housing, which hardly seems worth it as lists are very long and there is little turnover in available units within the respective municipalities. Even if we can manage to build 171,360 units overnight, the wait list will be refilled by others who see movement on this eternal wait list and want to join up too. The cost of building all the new units we need would be way too expensive - in the multi-billions! However, the wait lists are not getting shorter, nor is the wait times getting reduced. Even people with so-called "priority listing" can wait at least a couple of years before they get a unit. Others can wait between six years in some regions to twenty-one years in others. It is obvious the social housing system we have adopted is not working.
Even when people do obtain a unit, the municipally owned ones are often in a state of disrepair. In my opinion, the municipalities do not have the money to keep them up. The larger their owned housing stock, the worse the problem appears to be. In Toronto, TCHC units have a $2.6 billion repair backlog, while Niagara Region (a smaller region with a lower proportional housing stock) has a $120 million backlog. In its report, entitled Neighbourhoods First, the Smarter Niagara Steering Committee has presented a number of problems with social housing itself, particularly how those in social housing are segregated and are made to know their place in society (as being less valued and sought after). Their suggestions have been interesting, to say the least:
1. The Cost:
In this report, it stated What is not measured is the public tax benefit (much less the human
benefit) of diverting children to better outcomes compared to the cost
of providing subsidized housing to subsequent generations.
This approach to addressing housing affordability costs all of us in lost
productivity, continued social assistance, and in the physical upkeep of
the properties.
Much of the current affordable housing stock is in disrepair, largely due to the failure to adequately invest sufficient initial capital funds. Many
buildings were cheaply built with low “maximum unit prices” and other
methods of capital cost limitations. Insufficient reserve funding also
meant that these projects suffer from budgetary deficits and are now
forced to refinance for capital improvements well beyond what private
market units would require. Children who have grown up in public housing often end up living in public housing themselves as they grow up. People in one part of my husband's family have all lived in public housing as children, only to grow up and have children living in public housing themselves.
Repair backlogs are expensive. I've been inside units in my region that have had serious issues, such as mould, rotting ceilings and nonworking appliances. When taken to task for repair issues, the municipality cries about lack of budget, whereas we can force private landlords to fix their properties relatively easily comparatively.
2. Segregation:
Particular buildings and housing complexes are known as "public housing" and act as ways to segregate low income people. When people living in these communities go outside, they do not see a diversity of people, with a diversity of lifestyles and different levels of ambition. They mostly meet people much like themselves who could only teach one another how to better "survive" poverty.
3. Social Housing Rules:
The rules determining rent rate depend on what a family's total income is, as well as number of people. If there is a mismatch between the number of people and the unit size, the family may be forced to move. If a family with several children live in a social housing unit, as each child leaves the household, the family may be forced to move once again (at their own expense and trouble). This repeats itself until the person is living alone or half of a couple, whereas then they are not permitted except under slim circumstances to have a second bedroom, where many families outside the subsidized system use the spare bedroom as a place for a child to return home to, to house a family member in temporary need of a place to stay, or even to start a home based business. In social housing, none of this permitted, even having a home business run out of one's unit (although this might have changed recently although one is still likely not allowed to allocate an extra bedroom to run the said business). In addition to this, those receiving OW or ODSP are further punished if they attempt to earn significant incomes or try to reduce their reliance on social assistance. It is stated in a study by the Social Housing Services Corporation that a full time worker living in an RGI unit gains a net of only $1 per hour for working full time, as opposed to remaining on social assistance and not working at all. Further, as individuals work more hours, their housing rents go up accordingly, eventually trapping the person into making very difficult choices: quit the job/reduce one's hours or move to market housing.
4. Maintaining Families as Permanent Renters:
If you are paying only $139 a month for rent and you go to a bank or mortgage broker seeking a mortgage to buy even a low priced ownership property, you will be laughed out of there. Somebody paying full market rent for several years without issue has a greater chance of being accepted for a mortgage than somebody that hasn't. There are some assisted down payment programs available through social housing providers, but they are limited in scope. Even seniors that own their own homes have to sell within six months of being accepted into social housing, which means they cannot maintain an asset that might do them well as they move on in years and might need additional income or leverage for borrowing, or even to pass down to their children in an inheritance. This makes poverty further inherited and embedded into the family structure. In the market, technically home ownership and renting should be competitive and if rents are set too high, tenants should theoretically have the option to move to ownership. It doesn't work that way, so of course, the rental market is more likely to be difficult for lower earners. Saving for a downpayment is that much harder for them.
5. Little Assistance for Low Income Homeowners:
Imagine you became sick and had to leave your job and had to resort to disability benefits. You own your home, can manage (barely) the monthly costs of ownership, but cannot afford the extras, such as when your roof blows off or your furnace quits in the middle of January. There are way too many homeowners in this position. Some of them can afford to take on more debt, by applying a home equity loan to the cost of their repairs, but this would increase the monthly cost burden to those whose income is too low to take that on. Further, some homeowners end up with something major happening, whereas the insurance refuses to cover it or only covers a portion of the repairs. There used to be the RRAP (Residential Rehabilitation Assistance Program) run through the federal government and there were provincial counterparts, as well as the Home Repair Benefit for people receiving social assistance. Virtually all of those programs were scrapped in favour of a municipally-run discretionary forgivable loan (for my region the maximum one can acquire is $5,000 for every 10-year period which is truly inadequate). There were tax credits, but they were not refundable meaning people have the money to do the repair, spend it and then later can "write it off". Those people without income to begin with are sharply disadvantaged. Repair costs can add up rapidly and quiickly exceed the $5,000 maximum, as I've seen in many cases. Most of these people live in their homes without adequate heat, hot water or other issues, hoping beyond all hope nobody finds out.
In most cases, homeowners do not want to return to the rental market, especially under the current rules in place, which effectively keep them impoverished and cause them to drain all or most of their assets just to receive an inadequate amount of support. Perhaps, if this help was more realistic and made more readily available to low income homeowners, there would not be the downturn of assets and impoverishment the current rules force on people.
6. Stigmatization:
Lastly, there is a great deal of stigma with certain addresses or housing run by certain groups (e.g. housing for people with mental health problems). Most people who have mental health problems do not want to live in a "mental health" housing unit, as this usually denotes the requirement that they need twenty-four hour support or at least daily support. People may need this support, but it should not be connected to their housing unit and the person should be able to stay there if their needs change later on.
Recommendations include:
1. Change the RGI income rules so that the same dollar is not clawed back twice or more if the resident is on social assistance. The Marginal Effective Tax Rates are very high for this group, ranging from 85% to sometimes exceeding 100%. While we have billionaires complaining that if they have to pay a single dollar more than the 15% rate they currently pay, they say they have no incentive to hire or to invest ... why is it any different for poor people?
2. Be easy on the rules about over-housing/under-housing. If somebody has a reasonable need for a second bedroom, allow it. If I had to move to a one-bedroom at the time I was literally being harassed to do so back in the 1980's, I would have had to quit school not having a quiet place of my own to study. People's needs differ and the "one size fits all" mentality has to stop. For others with larger families, they may wish to move to a smaller unit to get in to social housing and out of overpriced rental housing just so they can have a place to stay until an appropriate sized unit is available to them.
3. Quit segregating the poor into specific buildings or projects. Tie the subsidy to the person or family, not the unit. Let people move where they want and give them a portable subsidy to top up their income so they can reasonably afford average market rent accommodations for their needs. This way, people should have the right to move if the need arises. People in segregated complexes are often left to live with less than desirable neighbours, one of whom was beaten up by his neighbour for being a Muslim and told to move back to "his country" though he was born and raised here. He asked for a transfer, but was refused. If one's neighbours are up all night partying and dealing drugs to others in the complex, one should also have the right to move, esp. if the housing complex refuses to evict them (which is often the case as they refer to themselves as "last resort housing providers").
4. Work on the economy from the bottom up. Never mind tax breaks for those that can afford to pay them and get rid of those boutique tax breaks that most low income people will not be able to use anyways, such as children's sports credit, children's art credit, etc. (and myriad of other credits available to families that can easily pay the costs to these things, only to have a tax break for part of the purchase). These taxes if paid would go a long ways to assisting those at the bottom, many of whom will be able to spend the extra money and grow the economy.
5. Recognize housing affordability at the lower end is an income problem and not a housing problem. At the present time, landlords cannot afford to drop their rents so that lower income people can afford them. However, there would be less issue with maintaining and developing new rental properties if more people can afford to rent them. Some of the proposals regarding a portable rent subsidy in Michael Mendelson's paper are worth looking at, particularly those that would allow all low income people on assistance to afford average market rents. This should also be available for homeowners that are paying too much of their income on basic monthly costs for their homes as well. Supply will eventually develop as more landlords see the potential to rent to more people in the market.
6. For those in |"supportive housing", there should be a disconnection between the support and the unit. Therefore, the support would come to the person on an as needed basis, while it would be reduced over time as the person needs less help, but can still remain in the same unit.
7. There should also be innovative funds for people wishing to enter the market for renting units to others. For example, a homeowner of a single family home may want some assistance to purchase a tri-plex or four-plex and renovate them to enable them to provide affordable rents to those seeking rental housing in their communities. Doing this should be encouraged, even if the homeowner is on ODSP or other social assistance and can rent the units to recover some additional income over and above the maintenance costs. Some people on ODSP do want to retire with some assets and not have to rely on GIS.
8. Also, municipalities should be allowed to buy and sell their housing stock to anybody, or even sell their stock and remain only in the business of managing the housing supports. Given this additional freedom, this will reduce the repair backlog and also enable some social housing tenants to purchase their own units, either on their own or collectively.
These are my thoughts. What about yours?
Showing posts with label poverty in retirement. Show all posts
Showing posts with label poverty in retirement. Show all posts
Sunday, October 16, 2016
Sunday, May 31, 2015
TARGETING THE MIDDLE CLASS AND OTHER POLITICAL MYTHS
If Canadians were surveyed today as to where they fell in the economic spectrum with respect to class, more than 75% would claim to belong to the "middle class". Unfortunately, personal impressions and economic reality clash loudly on this question. What IS the :middle class"? There really isn't any formal definition of middle class, but examples depicted by the Media.
If you introduced this concept to a room filled with individuals and families living in long-term poverty, while some would think they belong in the "middle class" they really don't. The only source of information most of these folks can get about the "middle class" is from the Mass Media. If the Media were to be believed about what constitutes the "middle class", we are talking about families that experience the following and often take for granted and:
Articles about employment and human resources issues also address the false middle class environment as well, assuming that workplaces are all large, employing hundreds of people and utilizing several departments and department heads, hence the expression, "climbing the corporate ladder". Very few articles of this type actually address situations in employers with less than ten or even five persons, as it is assumed that everybody works for large companies. Even in articles intended to support those who have been laid off appear to reflect this myth about contacting human resources departments and checking company websites for job openings.
First, members of the Mass Media are completely out of touch with the lives of people that do not enjoy most or all of those above things, nor do they realize or ascribe this group of people as being much larger than people want to believe it is. However, there are more stories coming out about young people leaving college or university, even professionally designated courses, who end up unemployed or under-employed when they come out, hence, their trip to their parents' basement (yet they do not write about those that graduate but do not have parents that would take them back). The Mass Media wants to keep up the myth that most of us had these amenities growing up, or that those growing up today enjoy these amenities. As well, the myth is perpetrated that everybody has family to rely on and back them up, even if just on an emotional level. The writer has not experienced any of the above positive reflections of a so-called "Middle Class" fairyland, although technically, my family of origin was not poor. We just never enjoyed these other things, probably because less people than the media think have access to these things.
Second, politicians are even more out of touch with the lives of people they are elected to represent than that of the Mass Media. Politicians have identified a family income of being about $120,000 a year as being "middle class", and the idea that income splitting will benefit many members of this supposed "middle class", Politicians do not want to hear that most families, other than families of the elite 15%, need two incomes to keep up with even the basics. There is a prototypical (usually male) breadwinner that earns six figures in one of those rare jobs that can now pass along (on paper) up to $50,000 to his stay-at-home wife to save on taxes. This policy will cost the government over $2 billion but not put one more cent into the pockets of the real middle class, or into services needed by the rest of us. Don't be fooled if one of those politicians comes knocking on your door to try to convince you otherwise, especially if you are in a family like I am that hasn't noticed one iota of a positive difference in our well being since Harper took root, other than more costs.
Even Justin Trudeau who purports to speak for the "middle class" has never himself experienced being anything other than from the high priced elite. Both the Liberals and Conservatives have ran deficits over the past several decades and lately, their answer to these deficits is to further cut the programs that mostly benefit the "middle class" and the lower income individuals and families. At a provincial level, welfare and disability benefits go as far as they did in the 1970's, while paying today's prices. Don't kid yourself. Today, you may have a job, but tomorrow if you lose that job through restructuring, layoff or health issues, you too are more likely to rely on the state for survival, as less and less employers provide the kinds of benefits they did in the past to protect people under these circumstances, and according to some, less people are eligible for even EI benefits. Among those lucky to hold a steady job, which is the minority according to a recent article in the Toronto Star, their wages haven't been keeping up much either. In my own community, every second person I speak to is receiving Ontario Works, ODSP, OAS/GIS, EI, WSIB, LTD (from their workplace) or similar benefits. The mere number of these people have brought our average individual and family incomes down substantially, whereby Niagara Region is one of the poorest in Ontario.
One of the issues that is faced in Niagara is that more working poor are nervous about their own futures, so they see a need to attack those in a class below theirs. Those with jobs call those without jobs "lazy". Those that drive assume they are better than those that don't. Those that own their own homes are "better and more stable than" those that rent. This is felt throughout the community. Nobody has to say anything, but if you mention to people that you don't drive, or that you rent an apartment (particularly in a co-op or in government housing which is really faux pas here), or that you are having a hard time finding a job, the sarcastic elite of the non-elite tell people there are "help wanted| signs at Tim Horton's, etc. As if even if every single unemployed person applied for all of these jobs, that every single one of them will be employed ... Yeah, right.
Manufacturing is dead in Ontario, apart from some specialized manufacturing firms requiring high skilled workers and less of them. Other jobs, such as those in the public or quasi-public sector are under attack by the right. As if tearing down these jobs and the benefits they offer will increase the number of jobs and improve the benefits for those who are unemployed today ... the attitudes have to change. The NDP, while they pretend to speak up for the :little guy" tends to associate themselves with organized labour. While I have no animus towards organized labour, I feel those in unions represent the minority of working people and do not speak whatsoever for those in non-unionized jobs or for those who are self-employed but not running large corporations. The labour movement if it wants to be successful needs to speak up more for all workers, including self-employed persons, to push for structural changes in our political environment that would guarantee pay, benefits, time off, etc. for all of us ... and not just for those lucky enough to belong to a good union. Despite all of these issues being to the fore, the most the NDP has ever done about retirement, for example, is to push for the enhancement of the CPP - which will do nothing for the retirement of those who have not worked enough, contributed enough, or were self-employed most of their lives .... it is the OAS/GIS that needs to be substantially increased and restructured to address the retirement needs of people that don't have a defined benefit pension from their workplace or elsewhere.
Other proponents speak about housing as being the issue. Housing is an issue, but if people had enough money, housing would not be an issue. Left to the market, under conditions where people have a guaranteed annual income, the market would make necessary adjustments so that housing is available to more people at affordable prices. Most landlords today tend to measure affordability where the cost of the rent they charge should not be more than thirty to thirty five percent of what a tenant brings in, so in consequence, under a GAI system, this market equilibrium, this "market rent" will be much easier to set. As for home ownership, this should be made easier for people to get into the market and to maintain their housing after they retire, so people can "age in place". This is in contrast to these commercials that repeatedly air on TV about retirement homes that cost in the range of $3,000 - $5,000 a month to rich seniors, or Premier Care in Bathing, which provides walk-in luxury tubs, which on TV are only seen being installed in bathrooms the size of most people's living rooms. An older person on OAS/GIS will never be able to afford these upgrades and thus, will be more likely to be shipped off to a cheap nursing home, where their rights to basic medical care and even life itself might be at issue, based on costs.
After reading this, and our federal election gets under way, we need to ask our politicians what they define as the "middle class" and what the supposed "middle class" families can regularly afford to invest in right now without their help. Ask if they know what the average family income for your particular neighbourhood is. Have they researched it, or are their figures stayed from the time they stopped issuing the mandatory long form census? My bet is that politicians do not really want to talk to you if you ask these questions, because you will challenge their very assumption of who they must speak for if they did get elected.
Some of you reading this might say you don't vote or want to vote because none of the political parties speak for you, but I will tell you one thing ... this is EXACTLY what the elite want. They want people NOT to vote, so they can continue to put their puppets into power to do more and more bidding for them. I worked in elections for many years and have found that the percentage of eligible voters in well-off neighbourhoods far exceeds the number of eligible voters in low income neighbourhoods that actually fill a ballot. Politicians KNOW this, which is why you don't see politicians, or at least most of them, conducting their campaigns in low income neighbourhoods, public housing projects, and so forth. They will go to where people are most likely to exercise their vote and will target their proposed policies to those that do. Because politicians know the poor do not vote as much as the wealthier folks, they don't feel obligated to do anything about poverty ... other than address it through criminal avenues, such as law and order provisions against those poor who sleep in the wrong places or do not have anything to eat. On the contrary, if the poor voted in droves, politicians from all parties will be eager to develop policies to address their concerns ...
In addition to voting, we need to also train new voters to help them understand the impact of proposed policies from all parties and allow them to become informed voters. As an informed voter, I will not vote Liberal or Conservative in this next election because I see very little for the true "middle class" and even less for the poorest of all. But even if you exercised your vote for the Marijuana Party or the Rhinoceros Party, political campaign staff will note that you voted and that everybody in your neighbourhood also voted and this means, they will take your needs more seriously next time around.
Your thoughts?
If you introduced this concept to a room filled with individuals and families living in long-term poverty, while some would think they belong in the "middle class" they really don't. The only source of information most of these folks can get about the "middle class" is from the Mass Media. If the Media were to be believed about what constitutes the "middle class", we are talking about families that experience the following and often take for granted and:
- Live in large, single family homes in clean, safe and enriched neighbourhoods;
- Enjoy cultural celebrations of their ancestors and family heritage by partaking in community events by enjoying cultural relationships and club memberships;
- Enjoy family celebrations of common holidays like Christmas and Easter, have the resources to decorate their homes and enjoy hosting extending family during these periods;
- Have one or more children in the school system who are involved with athletics, drama, music club, student government, among other costly ventures, as well as at least one parent that has the time to participate in their children's schools;
- Have savings and resources to at least partially fund their children's post-secondary education, and would willingly support their children in this direction;
- Have resources or benefits from which to draw to cover common childhood and youth medical and dental issues, such as orthodontics, sports medical and training issues, gym memberships and other "extras" that most take for granted;
- Have at least one or two annual family vacations, which involve visiting the cottage up North or even traveling to Florida or some other similar destination;
- Have more than one personal vehicle for use by members of the family, with support for the older children to obtain their driver's license and use the family vehicle;
- Have some contacts which may assist their children in getting a start in the workforce; and
- Once the children have left the home, the parents continue to have significant resources to spend to either renovate their home to suit their needs as ageing persons or to find a smaller residence to reduce the amount of maintenance required in the home.
Articles about employment and human resources issues also address the false middle class environment as well, assuming that workplaces are all large, employing hundreds of people and utilizing several departments and department heads, hence the expression, "climbing the corporate ladder". Very few articles of this type actually address situations in employers with less than ten or even five persons, as it is assumed that everybody works for large companies. Even in articles intended to support those who have been laid off appear to reflect this myth about contacting human resources departments and checking company websites for job openings.
First, members of the Mass Media are completely out of touch with the lives of people that do not enjoy most or all of those above things, nor do they realize or ascribe this group of people as being much larger than people want to believe it is. However, there are more stories coming out about young people leaving college or university, even professionally designated courses, who end up unemployed or under-employed when they come out, hence, their trip to their parents' basement (yet they do not write about those that graduate but do not have parents that would take them back). The Mass Media wants to keep up the myth that most of us had these amenities growing up, or that those growing up today enjoy these amenities. As well, the myth is perpetrated that everybody has family to rely on and back them up, even if just on an emotional level. The writer has not experienced any of the above positive reflections of a so-called "Middle Class" fairyland, although technically, my family of origin was not poor. We just never enjoyed these other things, probably because less people than the media think have access to these things.
Second, politicians are even more out of touch with the lives of people they are elected to represent than that of the Mass Media. Politicians have identified a family income of being about $120,000 a year as being "middle class", and the idea that income splitting will benefit many members of this supposed "middle class", Politicians do not want to hear that most families, other than families of the elite 15%, need two incomes to keep up with even the basics. There is a prototypical (usually male) breadwinner that earns six figures in one of those rare jobs that can now pass along (on paper) up to $50,000 to his stay-at-home wife to save on taxes. This policy will cost the government over $2 billion but not put one more cent into the pockets of the real middle class, or into services needed by the rest of us. Don't be fooled if one of those politicians comes knocking on your door to try to convince you otherwise, especially if you are in a family like I am that hasn't noticed one iota of a positive difference in our well being since Harper took root, other than more costs.
Even Justin Trudeau who purports to speak for the "middle class" has never himself experienced being anything other than from the high priced elite. Both the Liberals and Conservatives have ran deficits over the past several decades and lately, their answer to these deficits is to further cut the programs that mostly benefit the "middle class" and the lower income individuals and families. At a provincial level, welfare and disability benefits go as far as they did in the 1970's, while paying today's prices. Don't kid yourself. Today, you may have a job, but tomorrow if you lose that job through restructuring, layoff or health issues, you too are more likely to rely on the state for survival, as less and less employers provide the kinds of benefits they did in the past to protect people under these circumstances, and according to some, less people are eligible for even EI benefits. Among those lucky to hold a steady job, which is the minority according to a recent article in the Toronto Star, their wages haven't been keeping up much either. In my own community, every second person I speak to is receiving Ontario Works, ODSP, OAS/GIS, EI, WSIB, LTD (from their workplace) or similar benefits. The mere number of these people have brought our average individual and family incomes down substantially, whereby Niagara Region is one of the poorest in Ontario.
One of the issues that is faced in Niagara is that more working poor are nervous about their own futures, so they see a need to attack those in a class below theirs. Those with jobs call those without jobs "lazy". Those that drive assume they are better than those that don't. Those that own their own homes are "better and more stable than" those that rent. This is felt throughout the community. Nobody has to say anything, but if you mention to people that you don't drive, or that you rent an apartment (particularly in a co-op or in government housing which is really faux pas here), or that you are having a hard time finding a job, the sarcastic elite of the non-elite tell people there are "help wanted| signs at Tim Horton's, etc. As if even if every single unemployed person applied for all of these jobs, that every single one of them will be employed ... Yeah, right.
Manufacturing is dead in Ontario, apart from some specialized manufacturing firms requiring high skilled workers and less of them. Other jobs, such as those in the public or quasi-public sector are under attack by the right. As if tearing down these jobs and the benefits they offer will increase the number of jobs and improve the benefits for those who are unemployed today ... the attitudes have to change. The NDP, while they pretend to speak up for the :little guy" tends to associate themselves with organized labour. While I have no animus towards organized labour, I feel those in unions represent the minority of working people and do not speak whatsoever for those in non-unionized jobs or for those who are self-employed but not running large corporations. The labour movement if it wants to be successful needs to speak up more for all workers, including self-employed persons, to push for structural changes in our political environment that would guarantee pay, benefits, time off, etc. for all of us ... and not just for those lucky enough to belong to a good union. Despite all of these issues being to the fore, the most the NDP has ever done about retirement, for example, is to push for the enhancement of the CPP - which will do nothing for the retirement of those who have not worked enough, contributed enough, or were self-employed most of their lives .... it is the OAS/GIS that needs to be substantially increased and restructured to address the retirement needs of people that don't have a defined benefit pension from their workplace or elsewhere.
Other proponents speak about housing as being the issue. Housing is an issue, but if people had enough money, housing would not be an issue. Left to the market, under conditions where people have a guaranteed annual income, the market would make necessary adjustments so that housing is available to more people at affordable prices. Most landlords today tend to measure affordability where the cost of the rent they charge should not be more than thirty to thirty five percent of what a tenant brings in, so in consequence, under a GAI system, this market equilibrium, this "market rent" will be much easier to set. As for home ownership, this should be made easier for people to get into the market and to maintain their housing after they retire, so people can "age in place". This is in contrast to these commercials that repeatedly air on TV about retirement homes that cost in the range of $3,000 - $5,000 a month to rich seniors, or Premier Care in Bathing, which provides walk-in luxury tubs, which on TV are only seen being installed in bathrooms the size of most people's living rooms. An older person on OAS/GIS will never be able to afford these upgrades and thus, will be more likely to be shipped off to a cheap nursing home, where their rights to basic medical care and even life itself might be at issue, based on costs.
After reading this, and our federal election gets under way, we need to ask our politicians what they define as the "middle class" and what the supposed "middle class" families can regularly afford to invest in right now without their help. Ask if they know what the average family income for your particular neighbourhood is. Have they researched it, or are their figures stayed from the time they stopped issuing the mandatory long form census? My bet is that politicians do not really want to talk to you if you ask these questions, because you will challenge their very assumption of who they must speak for if they did get elected.
Some of you reading this might say you don't vote or want to vote because none of the political parties speak for you, but I will tell you one thing ... this is EXACTLY what the elite want. They want people NOT to vote, so they can continue to put their puppets into power to do more and more bidding for them. I worked in elections for many years and have found that the percentage of eligible voters in well-off neighbourhoods far exceeds the number of eligible voters in low income neighbourhoods that actually fill a ballot. Politicians KNOW this, which is why you don't see politicians, or at least most of them, conducting their campaigns in low income neighbourhoods, public housing projects, and so forth. They will go to where people are most likely to exercise their vote and will target their proposed policies to those that do. Because politicians know the poor do not vote as much as the wealthier folks, they don't feel obligated to do anything about poverty ... other than address it through criminal avenues, such as law and order provisions against those poor who sleep in the wrong places or do not have anything to eat. On the contrary, if the poor voted in droves, politicians from all parties will be eager to develop policies to address their concerns ...
In addition to voting, we need to also train new voters to help them understand the impact of proposed policies from all parties and allow them to become informed voters. As an informed voter, I will not vote Liberal or Conservative in this next election because I see very little for the true "middle class" and even less for the poorest of all. But even if you exercised your vote for the Marijuana Party or the Rhinoceros Party, political campaign staff will note that you voted and that everybody in your neighbourhood also voted and this means, they will take your needs more seriously next time around.
Your thoughts?
Sunday, January 4, 2015
A SPLASH FOR THE RICH FROM THE START OF 2015 ...
What is a cynic to say when this is a New Year, when bam! ... 12:01 a.m. on January 1, 2015, a gift arrived for Canada's wealthiest families with children under eighteen. Coming from a jaded perspective of "fairness", the federal government just threw them all a gift up to $2,000 a year in tax savings, while 85% of Canadian families with children get nothing. Perhaps more money can be written off in daycare costs by some of us, but you have to have the cash first before you can benefit and how are less "entitled" Canadians going to benefit if they: (a) need to work; and (b) cannot afford upfront costs in daycare? I suppose the federal government will tell these parents or parent, in the singular sense, to stay home and raise their kids ... and draw upon their independent wealth that we all supposedly have, or just suck it up and find a "babysitter".
First, the people that benefit the most by this dog's breakfast of a tax giveaway are two parent families, where one stays home to look after the kids and the male (usually) has a job that pays in the six figures. Not exactly the kind of family in my opinion that badly needs this extra money, or any kind of example of a consumer that will spend this money in the community to generate jobs ... the extra money is likely to be thrown into investments or foreign bank accounts, as a family like this is not going to buy more groceries, another car or take more meals out than they already do, just because of this financial infusion. It is a $3 billion drain on our federal budget, money which can be better spend on health care or infrastructure supports. The health care accord between the federal government and its provinces and territories ended last year, which means that the federal government led by a leader that never supported the idea of medicare can feel more free to cut back the transfers it gives to the provinces by way of Canadian Health and Social Transfer, and by way of not enforcing the Canada Health Act to allow provinces to experiment with private health care. This certainly won't bother the family with a six figure income breadwinner as they likely have health, disability and life insurance, while the rest of us will end up paying more out of pocket.
Second, two income families, which is what most families are these days, will not benefit (except where there is a very wide variation of wages, such as a minimum wage worker married to a senior public school teacher that earns over $94,000 a year). There is no rationale for this handout to those richer than the rest of us. Two-income families have much more expenses than those families with a single high income earner. There is transportation, work clothes, lunches out, training and education expenses, as well as daycare, if there are children. Those two items alone take up much more than the $2,000 gift their one income counterparts will be receiving this year (and in most cases, they will be getting a big zero from our federal government). Calls for national child care policy have fallen on deaf ears with this current government. In the eyes of Harper, the best that women can hope for is an iron clad guarantee that their marriage to their sole breadwinner man will last ... something we know is more likely to fail than not. There are reasons women need to go into the paid labour force and remain financially independent, even if her significant other is a good earner.
All of this discussion around the so-called Family Tax Break has been so convoluted by media portrayals of what constitutes an average family. None of us have ever seen real families portrayed in the media as being legitimate, such as those with single parents, those with same sex partners, those where the only breadwinner is supporting the other spouse with a disability, or cases where the total family income is insufficient to meet even basic costs, let alone enough to benefit from any tax breaks ... families that struggle to put food on the table will not be putting their children in hockey or other extracurricular activities. The idea of shuffling kids around in a minivan is completely foreign to many, many Canadian families, yet the media likes to portray this type of family as being "average". Politicians especially of the Christian right in Canada tend to believe they are benefiting all families by only catering to families much like their own. Studies have shown that politicians are more likely to come from high income backgrounds and supportive families, while the majority of Canadians have mixed experiences. Not experiencing a struggle gives politicians no right to determine what rights the rest of us have. They do not understand what the "rest of us" need because they never needed to. Many have never held "real jobs" as your or I refer to them ... having inherited trust funds from their parents, been educated in the best schools, and enjoyed prestigious positions in companies owned or influenced by their parents, and similar situations. These are the types of people that usually complain about high taxes (Canadian Taxpayers' Federation) - folks who are financially secure, often earning six figures or in a high profile profession, such as journalism, law or finance. While I don\t have much information on the demographics of the membership of these groups, but a perusal of their board of directors' thumbnail bios, or by researching the backgrounds of particularly high profile spokespersons for these groups will give you an idea. While this does not determine their personal values or advantages they likely had in reaching the positions they have, nor does it comment on their personal character or even makes a statement against their credibility (as in fact, I do enjoy the writings of many of these same people), but - put it this way, I have yet to see a single parent juggling three jobs and three kids joining an organization like this or caring a whit about what these people have to say.
The Harper Government is expected to hold an election this year. Perhaps, this is why he is throwing goodies at his wealthy supporters at this time. It is important to get these changes in before the election so he can add these things to the list of things he supposedly done for Canadians, yet more and more of us are wondering if we are even living in Canada today, as the Canada of today is so different than the Canada of yesterday. For example, I don't have any faith that there will be any public pensions available for people that are not availing themselves of their own savings or of employer-based pensions. Stephen Harper and his ilk doesn't give two hoots about elderly people, particularly women that don't have access to private pensions. Even if one maxes out their entitlements to OAS, GIS and small amounts of CPP one might be entitled to, these folks will be living in deep poverty. I doubt even this will be around by the time I reach the ever moving target called the age of retirement. I am also finding that more and more health care services are not covered by provincial medicare, which means to many of us, we simply do without ... this doesn't help the man with the abscessed tooth that ended up dying, the woman who mysteriously died after being admitted to hospital with a dental infection, or the patients who are clogging the wait lists for orthopedic care due to the lack of funding for physiotherapy.
I think that among those of us that do not belong to the economic elite better stop voting for politicians that are part of this elite. We need to vote those out that are supported by the elite (such as lobbied by the big oil companies which receive billions of taxpayer dollars in annual subsidies) and those that continue to not give a tinker's damn about the rest of us. I vote municipally for those that are not "too good for" public transportation, and for those that are not interested in closing more schools without examining the impact that it has on housing values in the neighbourhoods serving them. I vote provincially and federally for politicians that once held ordinary jobs, and know what it is like to do so and try to raise a family. I also vote for those that operate small businesses, who did not inherit that business from somebody else. I will support any politician that will actually do something about the increasing gap between the rich and the poor and not just wring their hands over it. For example, stop the 1% from begetting the future 1% through inheritances ... this unearned money over a certain amount should be taxed heavily and perhaps prodigy of the rich might have to try to make it like the rest of us. Start clawing back incomes over $150,000 at a higher rate ... and use the proceeds to invest in lower income people to help them raise their income or create opportunities for themselves, as well as provide a living income for those that cannot do this.
I am not just speaking as somebody who is against wealthy people, because I am not. Higher incomes should be encouraged and the number of high earners should increase. In fact, I had many jobs in the past prior to losing my driver's license that paid quite well, and never did I ever whine about the taxes that I paid during that time including the so called "high income surtax" that the top 10% had to pay at the time, but since reduced. I personally think politicians should ask those coming to them complaining about taxes to require such individuals to disclose their own incomes, both gross and incomes held in wealth, as well as line 150 in the previous year's tax assessment and then asked if they had a choice between earning what they do now and paying what they currently pay in taxes (or a little bit more), or to pay absolutely no taxes and just earn $20,000 a year for all of their needs, including housing, travel, food, etc. and see what they say. For those that say this is an infringement of privacy, please know this is how poor people are treated all the time before they can get one penny of any kind of help, yet the same wealthy people we speak of continue to benefit from much more of our tax dollars, directly or indirectly, than the whole gaggle of poor people in Ontario.,
First, the people that benefit the most by this dog's breakfast of a tax giveaway are two parent families, where one stays home to look after the kids and the male (usually) has a job that pays in the six figures. Not exactly the kind of family in my opinion that badly needs this extra money, or any kind of example of a consumer that will spend this money in the community to generate jobs ... the extra money is likely to be thrown into investments or foreign bank accounts, as a family like this is not going to buy more groceries, another car or take more meals out than they already do, just because of this financial infusion. It is a $3 billion drain on our federal budget, money which can be better spend on health care or infrastructure supports. The health care accord between the federal government and its provinces and territories ended last year, which means that the federal government led by a leader that never supported the idea of medicare can feel more free to cut back the transfers it gives to the provinces by way of Canadian Health and Social Transfer, and by way of not enforcing the Canada Health Act to allow provinces to experiment with private health care. This certainly won't bother the family with a six figure income breadwinner as they likely have health, disability and life insurance, while the rest of us will end up paying more out of pocket.
Second, two income families, which is what most families are these days, will not benefit (except where there is a very wide variation of wages, such as a minimum wage worker married to a senior public school teacher that earns over $94,000 a year). There is no rationale for this handout to those richer than the rest of us. Two-income families have much more expenses than those families with a single high income earner. There is transportation, work clothes, lunches out, training and education expenses, as well as daycare, if there are children. Those two items alone take up much more than the $2,000 gift their one income counterparts will be receiving this year (and in most cases, they will be getting a big zero from our federal government). Calls for national child care policy have fallen on deaf ears with this current government. In the eyes of Harper, the best that women can hope for is an iron clad guarantee that their marriage to their sole breadwinner man will last ... something we know is more likely to fail than not. There are reasons women need to go into the paid labour force and remain financially independent, even if her significant other is a good earner.
All of this discussion around the so-called Family Tax Break has been so convoluted by media portrayals of what constitutes an average family. None of us have ever seen real families portrayed in the media as being legitimate, such as those with single parents, those with same sex partners, those where the only breadwinner is supporting the other spouse with a disability, or cases where the total family income is insufficient to meet even basic costs, let alone enough to benefit from any tax breaks ... families that struggle to put food on the table will not be putting their children in hockey or other extracurricular activities. The idea of shuffling kids around in a minivan is completely foreign to many, many Canadian families, yet the media likes to portray this type of family as being "average". Politicians especially of the Christian right in Canada tend to believe they are benefiting all families by only catering to families much like their own. Studies have shown that politicians are more likely to come from high income backgrounds and supportive families, while the majority of Canadians have mixed experiences. Not experiencing a struggle gives politicians no right to determine what rights the rest of us have. They do not understand what the "rest of us" need because they never needed to. Many have never held "real jobs" as your or I refer to them ... having inherited trust funds from their parents, been educated in the best schools, and enjoyed prestigious positions in companies owned or influenced by their parents, and similar situations. These are the types of people that usually complain about high taxes (Canadian Taxpayers' Federation) - folks who are financially secure, often earning six figures or in a high profile profession, such as journalism, law or finance. While I don\t have much information on the demographics of the membership of these groups, but a perusal of their board of directors' thumbnail bios, or by researching the backgrounds of particularly high profile spokespersons for these groups will give you an idea. While this does not determine their personal values or advantages they likely had in reaching the positions they have, nor does it comment on their personal character or even makes a statement against their credibility (as in fact, I do enjoy the writings of many of these same people), but - put it this way, I have yet to see a single parent juggling three jobs and three kids joining an organization like this or caring a whit about what these people have to say.
The Harper Government is expected to hold an election this year. Perhaps, this is why he is throwing goodies at his wealthy supporters at this time. It is important to get these changes in before the election so he can add these things to the list of things he supposedly done for Canadians, yet more and more of us are wondering if we are even living in Canada today, as the Canada of today is so different than the Canada of yesterday. For example, I don't have any faith that there will be any public pensions available for people that are not availing themselves of their own savings or of employer-based pensions. Stephen Harper and his ilk doesn't give two hoots about elderly people, particularly women that don't have access to private pensions. Even if one maxes out their entitlements to OAS, GIS and small amounts of CPP one might be entitled to, these folks will be living in deep poverty. I doubt even this will be around by the time I reach the ever moving target called the age of retirement. I am also finding that more and more health care services are not covered by provincial medicare, which means to many of us, we simply do without ... this doesn't help the man with the abscessed tooth that ended up dying, the woman who mysteriously died after being admitted to hospital with a dental infection, or the patients who are clogging the wait lists for orthopedic care due to the lack of funding for physiotherapy.
I think that among those of us that do not belong to the economic elite better stop voting for politicians that are part of this elite. We need to vote those out that are supported by the elite (such as lobbied by the big oil companies which receive billions of taxpayer dollars in annual subsidies) and those that continue to not give a tinker's damn about the rest of us. I vote municipally for those that are not "too good for" public transportation, and for those that are not interested in closing more schools without examining the impact that it has on housing values in the neighbourhoods serving them. I vote provincially and federally for politicians that once held ordinary jobs, and know what it is like to do so and try to raise a family. I also vote for those that operate small businesses, who did not inherit that business from somebody else. I will support any politician that will actually do something about the increasing gap between the rich and the poor and not just wring their hands over it. For example, stop the 1% from begetting the future 1% through inheritances ... this unearned money over a certain amount should be taxed heavily and perhaps prodigy of the rich might have to try to make it like the rest of us. Start clawing back incomes over $150,000 at a higher rate ... and use the proceeds to invest in lower income people to help them raise their income or create opportunities for themselves, as well as provide a living income for those that cannot do this.
I am not just speaking as somebody who is against wealthy people, because I am not. Higher incomes should be encouraged and the number of high earners should increase. In fact, I had many jobs in the past prior to losing my driver's license that paid quite well, and never did I ever whine about the taxes that I paid during that time including the so called "high income surtax" that the top 10% had to pay at the time, but since reduced. I personally think politicians should ask those coming to them complaining about taxes to require such individuals to disclose their own incomes, both gross and incomes held in wealth, as well as line 150 in the previous year's tax assessment and then asked if they had a choice between earning what they do now and paying what they currently pay in taxes (or a little bit more), or to pay absolutely no taxes and just earn $20,000 a year for all of their needs, including housing, travel, food, etc. and see what they say. For those that say this is an infringement of privacy, please know this is how poor people are treated all the time before they can get one penny of any kind of help, yet the same wealthy people we speak of continue to benefit from much more of our tax dollars, directly or indirectly, than the whole gaggle of poor people in Ontario.,
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