Category: inequality, poverty, social mobility

Is the U.S. Still a ‘Land of Opportunity’?

~ MilesCorak ~ 5 Comments

The New York Times posed this question to a group of experts, Richard Florida, Isabel Sawhill, Timothy Smeeding, and five others, including me.

More specifically, they asked:

There is a growing consensus that it is harder to move up the economic ladder in the United States than in many other places, like Canada. Should more Americans consider leaving the U.S. to get ahead? Or can the U.S. make changes to be more of a “land of opportunity”?

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Inequality and CEO compensation are more important than the CBC suggests

~ MilesCorak ~ Leave a comment

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s senior correspondent Terry Milewski does a disservice in conveying the facts about inequality in his coverage of the now infamous report released earlier this week by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.

The report graphically documents the income gap between top earners and the rest of the population, the so-called average Joe, by pointing out that by noon on January 3rd—the first working day of the year—the top 100 CEOs in the country made as much as the average Canadian will during the entire year.

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Three questions to ask the Minister of Finance

~ MilesCorak ~ 15 Comments

“Jobs and Growth the Priorities as Minister Flaherty Hosts Pre-Budget Consultations”, screams the title of a press release from the Department of Finance issued about a month ago.

Jim Flaherty wants to hear from Canadians about how he can maintain the federal government’s “focus on jobs and economic growth while reducing the deficit.”

But this week is a particularly good time to first pose a few questions to him in the hope of clarifying some facts about jobs, unemployment, and the role of government policy.

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Inequality and Occupy Wall Street 8: causes of growing inequality and policies to address it

~ MilesCorak ~ 1 Comment

This video of a panel discussion called “The Challenges of Growing Inequality” organized by the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University features a discussion by Lawerence Katz, a prominent labour economist. Katz speaks on the causes of inequality and offers advice to Occupiers on what should be done about it.

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Inequality and Occupy Wall Street 7: tax policy for occupiers

~ MilesCorak ~ 9 Comments

Perhaps a bit more politely than others in the mainstream media, but nonetheless pretty emphatically, the Ottawa Citizen columnist Joanne Chianello tells Occupiers that it’s time to leave, and she offers some advice:

“I don’t know what the answer is to the growing income gap. Unfortunately, neither do the people at Occupy Ottawa or Occupy Toronto or Occupy Vancouver. They could have contacted a lefty economist (yes, they exist) to help frame specific policy issues or demands, but they didn’t. Perhaps that’s the protest’s “stage two” we keep hearing about.”

Contact a lefty economist!

Well, if economists are going to be at the centre of “stage two” why don’t we forget about “lefty” or “righty”, and just consult the “best”?

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Inequality and Occupy Wall Street 6: tax principles for occupiers

~ MilesCorak ~ 5 Comments

Believe it or not, there is such a thing as a good tax.

A good tax raises the required government revenue by not only treating equals equally, but also by requiring more from those who will be hurt the least.

However, that is not all: a good tax is also a tax that is administered simply, transparently, and in a “neutral” way.

“Neutral” means it does not cause individuals and corporations to behave differently; in other words, the tax respects the outcomes of the marketplace (unless of course prices do not accurately reflect the true costs and benefits of an activity. In this case the tax might be used to explicitly correct these market failures.)

This confronts Occupiers with a dilemma.

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