scrubbedexpat091

Interesting article.

"StatCan looked at the tax records of five “cohorts” of Canadians born between 1963 and 1982. They found that a person born in 1982 to parents in the bottom fifth of earners is 22 per cent more likely to stay at the bottom than someone born 19 years earlier, in 1963. They are also 8 per cent less likely to make it to the top fifth of earners than their predecessors."

Not just a Canada problem, inequality is rising in all G7 countries to some extent.

senior economist at TD Bank says there are many potential reasons but highlights central banks habit in recent years of buying up assets during economic crises which drives up the prices of stocks, real estate and other assets which further widens the gap of those who own such assets and those who do not.


https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/entry/...b680717ee66c5a

scrubbedexpat099

There is a certain inevitability, must admit I have perused HuffPo UK occasionally but not the Canadian version, they seem very different.

The article seems quite reasonable and logical as G7 Countries in the main move to being consumer societies with wealth being generated elsewhere

There seems to be 2 changes of significance Covid has accelerated, remote working and a online sales.

One thing that has puzzled me after seeing so many relatively low level jobs exported is if as it seems so many can do their jobs remotely why pay Canadian etc high wages.

The one thing missing was a solution, a few comments at the end but not sure what they mean

scrubbedexpat091

That will probably be the next step, any job that can be sent overseas will be as companies realize hey why pay Canadian wages, lets ship these jobs to a cheaper country...

scrubbedexpat091

I guess that old saying is true in some ways.

"it takes money to make money"

scrubbedexpat099

Times change, economies change, with such a massive disparity in economies there must be a levelling out, messy process. Some will be OK, many will not.

scrubbedexpat091

Yep. I've said it before, I was born a few years too late to get in on the action. Nearly everyone I know born around the time I was is worse off than their parents, but these its probably in part due to people mostly meeting other people in the same socio economic groups, which can also skew perception a bit. Even the few I know with good careers like nursing, they only have a house because they happened from parents who had been able to buy in the 70's and 80's and sold for 1 or 2 million and downsized as used the profit of the home sale to buy their kids houses.

But many places don't see the huge growth in real estate value Vancouver saw, my dads house 20 years later is only about 150,000 more in value than he bought it for, but then the US saw a massive real estate crash that Canada did not which played a role.

scrubbedexpat099

It will be interesting how things change, I am as guilty as most in growing up assuming one general direction, well that was wrong.

How things are valued by society has also changed significantly, now seeing people I know in the trades doing much better than people with a doubtful qualification.

I have been expecting a lot more change, I think there is much more inertia in the system than I realized. Males me wonder if there is not a tipping point.

BristolUK

The first is not surprising and nor is the second part in terms of not being likely to make the top fifth of earners. It's probably the same all over.
I also suspect that those in the middle in 1963 are much less likely to make the top fifth than those from 1982 simply because pay at the top is at such extreme levels. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that someone just about getting into the top fifth now is probably "earning" a fraction of those at the very top compared to previously. Poor souls.

But I wonder if those able to make, say, halfway or better has increased.

Professional footballers who made good careers who were born in 1963 found earning power massively reduced at age 30 and then still needed to earn a crust post retirement but those born in 1982 could play for a few months, retire and never have to work again they'll have been paid so much.
Of course, that's the extreme, but there are a lot of them compared to before and even those at the fourth level, playing in front of a few hundred to 4000 earn a year's average pay every month. Imagine that, a lifetime's average pay in four years of playing.

It's the same in other sports too; superstar athletes with super incomes when their equivalents of the past would have been fortunate to have got some sponsorship deal and something 'under the counter'.
Wimbledon prize money for the 20 year old winner in 1983 was £66,600 and a much larger £525K in 2002. Big increases in other sports

Reality TV shows and other crap where people with no talent achieve fame. Influencers. Even child youtubers have become rich.

So there are many more opportunities to get super rich (but fall short of mega insanely rich) for the talented and untalented (starting from a disadvantaged level) than was previously the case.

Not that I'm bitter about it. Especially not bitter about the untalented ones.

dbd33

Firstly, I think the era of significant outsourcing is over. Jobs used to go to India or South America or wherever and, at that time, I was involved with an effort to get firms to outsource to indian reservations in Canada "the third world in your time zone". That ship has sailed. Remote working and zero hours contracts mean that people can be offered at the same price whether they live in Canada or live in their home countries. There has been a recent stampede of jobs out of the country but it's just immigrants to Canada finding that, in the covid era, they're not obliged to live here anymore. .They, and their jobs, will come back if remote working goes out of fashion.

Secondly, all western economies offer less social mobility now than they did a generation ago. My parents bought a house (in London, not in some godforsaken colony) on the income from working class jobs; that's a ridiculous idea today. What's important is not what opportunities are available to one's children relative to one's parents but what opportunities are available to them in Canada vs. other economies where one may reside. I think Canada is a good spot in this regard, plenty of parents fall for the whole "all schools are equal, no need to cram in the early grades, catch up later' siren song of sloth. Lots of people don't bother to teach their children both languages because they personally never hear the other one. The children of immigrants who are toiling away at their homework behind the counter in corner shops in good catchment areas and going to night school to learn English and French, whilst living in some other language, have a huge advantage and they're upwardly mobile. More upwardly mobile, I suggest, than their counterparts in the UK (nowhere else really matters now, Brexit rules out lots of countries and most of the rest were never tolerant of us anyway).

Wealth is consolidating. The rich are getting richer and the poor, and especially the unhealthy, are getting poorer. There's nothing the individual can do about that except choose the least bad location in their circumstances, move there and put up with it. For most posters here that's likely to be Canada or the UK, in which case I'd say, healthy, Canada, any sort of chronic condition or disability, UK.

scilly

There actually is a sort of inevitability in that the poorer your parents are the less likely it is that the children will get access to higher education, which is what leads to being able to get jobs that pay more money.

Always has been, always will be. It is not something new.

The only exception to that would I think be in the 1940s through 1960s when kids could leave high school here in BC, and probably elsewhere in Canada, in Grade 8, without any kind of diploma, and go straight to work in forestry. either out in the woods or in the mills, or fishing, and earn huge salaries. I understand the same thing happened in the US.

We knew a couple of men like that back in the 70s, and they did very well for themselves.

There wasn't much chance in the UK back in those days ........... leave school at 15, work in the mill like your dad and probably mum, down the coal mine, on the fishing boats, labouring on the roads, etc. If you were lucky, get a job in a solicitor's office and work your way up.

I look back at my own family ............. my mother had to leave school at age 12 during WW1, even though she had passed exams and got an award that would have allowed her to go onto high school, because her father was serving in the Machine Gun Corp., leaving her mother with 3 children aged 12, 5 and 1, and unable to support them on the meagre Army Wives pay. Mum went to work in the cotton mill, finally becoming a specialist velvet weaver.

My dad had to do the same thing, because his dad had died in 1914 and his elder brother, the oldest in a family of 6 children, was serving in France. His mother needed her children to get out to work as soon as possible. He went down the coal mine, then tried setting the lead type for a newspaper, before settling on a job in a brass foundry.

I think the only time my dad made a good salary was during WW2 when he was in restricted occupation, luckily in our home town. After the war was over, Mum had to find a part-time job to help supplement the family income, which she'd never had to do before the war.

My brother had to leave school at the then-leaving age of 14 during WW2, and find a job ........ not because he was forced to by family circumstances but because he hadn't passed the exams to go to Grammar School. Private education was not even thought of for the working classes.

I was the lucky one ............ I passed the exam for Grammar School, and both parents were willing to let me take up the offer, because of their own backgrounds. Many children were not able to do that, including at least one of my cousins. I was later under pressure from my parents to leave at 16, after taking the first set of exams. Mum thought the ideal job for a girl was to be a bank teller ........ it wasn't that long since women had been encouraged to do that, and it was a "nice clean job".

There was a big fight, about the only one I had with my parents, but eventually they agreed to support me staying on until I was 18 and doing the second set of exams. It helped of course that school was free!

Then I just rolled from there, got a Local Education Scholarship that , back in the late 50s, paid all my tuition and support at university. I worked in hotels during the summer vacation, and delivering post for 3 weeks at Christmas time.

I didn't cost my parents any extra, except of course, I wasn't able to provide any monetary support as I would have done if I'd worked and lived at home.

The only thing that happened was that I was out of work for 6 months after I got my 2nd degree when I couldn't find a position in the area that I was most keen on, and then decided that I would try teaching, which I'd never wanted to do. Had 2 job offers within a week, and took the one that I felt most comfortable with. I've been told since that some of the students thought I was the best teacher they'd had, but I did not really enjoy it and got no satisfaction out of it.

My luck was marrying my OH, a friend from university days, and coming to Canada where I got the job I loved and that I was truly trained for. Just incidentally, that job, working 4 days a week, paid me more than full-time teaching in England had done, and certainly more than an equivalent job in the UK would have done.

I was one of the lucky ones that managed to break the cycle. Unfortunately far too many did not, either back then and now.

Just try not to concentrate too much on the 1960s.

Jingsamichty

I can't believe that anyone is surprised that the situation of the ordinary people hasn't improved a great deal after decades of electing conservative and elitist politicians. Seriously, what do people expect?

DigitalGhost

I completely agree with this. In IT and tech at least, remote has become the new normal but most recruiters don't want to entertain applicants for jobs in Canada unless that person is in Canada or the US. There is very limited value to be found in shipping off anything other than short term freelancing work to places like India or the Philippines.

Interestingly what I have seen though is people departing the more expensive provinces to live in the cheaper ones whilst working remotely. I looked at a condo over the weekend and the current tenants were moving to Alberta for the tax breaks but would still be working for jobs based on Ontario. This is apparently part of what has driven the arguably long overdue reduction in downtown Toronto rental prices.

Personally I would rather pay the higher taxes and live in Toronto than freeze my arse off and face potential boredom in Edmonton or Calgary but I'm not normal. I'm also not entirely sure whether that economic model is sustainable in a country where the provinces often act as entirely separate entities and in some cases even compete with eachother.

scrubbedexpat091

Same thing happens in the US, cheaper southern states with poor labor laws and low min wage, and largely anti-union use tax breaks and other incentives to get companies to relocate from more forward thinking states, its a constant battle between states to keep and attract jobs and companies.

One problem with Canada you kind of touched on, most of the city's are not exactly exciting to downright boring. I lived in Edmonton for a time, its a pretty boring city overall, really no city in Canada or even region comparable to So. California, probably why I get so bored here.....

If I could, I would pack up and move home, just being where you want to be can improve your wellbeing quite a lot, plus I see more opportunity there, schooling for short term training is cheaper and sometimes completely free, less red tape and hurdles to get training, and min wage has caught up to BC and while rents are higher than many city's still cheaper than Vancouver and area, and better value, nicer, and almost always has a swimming pool. And being California, at min wage healthcare is pretty reasonable as its subsidized, so while more than BC once you account for lower rent it really nearly breaks even in the end at min wage. And the insurance covers mental health and dental and vision, 3 things healthcare doesn't cover in BC, so really probably works out cheaper in the end if you use any of those 3 things.

And if I made under $17/hr gross there would be some assistance with food via food stamp program, so additional savings there.

Geez I almost think California has better social safety net now than Canada....

scrubbedexpat099

Same everywhere and has been for a long time.

I bought some German Radiators, made in Poland.

German cars may be assembled in Germany but the components come from eastern Europe.

And so on.

orly

Comparisons are tough across generations, and for most people commenting here, across countries.

When I was a kid my parents bought their first house for under £30k but as it was the 1980s they got to deal with comical interest rates that, if around today, would probably bankrupt half of homeowners. My mother was the first person in our family to go to university for example. I was the 2nd...and I think it's stopped at me thus far unless I'm forgetting someone lol.

By the time they were my age they had both progressed from retail and menial sorts of jobs to being police officers. Now that was well paid compared to most people but I don't think there was a massive queue to become police officers in Northern Ireland in the 1980s...just saying. It had its downsides but needs must I suppose. They did well enough out of it fortunately. Retired in their 50s, own a very nice house, large enough pensions that they'll not worry for money ever again etc.

Brother still lives in N.Ireland. Bought a house on his own with a civil servants salary. Sort of thing that isn't possible in most of Canada I'd guess.

No complaints from me overall. Not buying a house in Ontario any time soon but household income is over $100k. We pay our bills easily, invest thousands of dollars a month, drive nice cars, eat in nice restaurants, live in a nice place even if it's renting. Have workplace pensions, private healthcare. Doing pretty well overall I'd say.

I'd hope by the time I'm in my 50s I'll be as well off as my parents but I can certainly envisage being better off because they had kids and a government pension and that was enough for them. I won't have kids (no interest in the slightest) so I don't have that massive expense. And while we're not sitting with a defined benefit pension times two, we're investing money that they never did because they didn't see the need. No reason that investing plus contribution based pension (with workplace matches) won't end up ballooning over the next 20 years to put me well ahead of my parents.

There's no question my parents ended up far better off than my grandparents generation after the war when you had to go for a shit in the outhouse etc