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1. The unintended consequences of a $15 minimum wage in B.C.

   Appeared in the Victoria Times-Colonist, August 27, 2017 It seems obvious. If you want to give low-wage workers a raise, then increase the minimum wage. This is the thinking of B.C.’s new government, which recently promised to raise the minimum wage to ...

2. Minimum wage—good intentions not good enough

   Appeared in the Calgary Sun, July 7, 2017 Proponents of raising the minimum wage in Canada should take note of a new study on the economic effects of minimum wage hikes in Seattle. In a nutshell, the study by University of Washington researchers found ...

3. A higher minimum wage could hurt working Ontarians

   Appeared in the Ottawa Sun, May 17, 2017 As part of a wider set of labour policy changes, the Wynne government may increase Ontario’s minimum wage to $15 an hour, up from the current level of $11.40. The intention is to help lower-income workers and their ...

4. Ontario’s basic income unlikely to help people get ahead

   This spring, the Ontario government will launch a three-year “basic income” pilot program and a key question to consider is how the program will impact the willingness of recipients to work. While it is possible to create a basic income ...

5. Seattle’s failed minimum wage experiment

   In what seems to be a never-ending debate about the economic effects of the minimum wage, proponents continue to wrongly tout this policy’s ability to actually help average low-wage workers, despite a mountain of evidence showing the ...

6. Forget CPP expansion; let’s talk about ways to actually help seniors who need it

   After Canada’s finance ministers met back in December 2015, the push to expand the Canada Pension Plan (CPP) halted somewhat, with the ministers agreeing to revisit the issue at their June 2016 meeting. As we have noted before, the ...

7. Raising the Minimum Wage: Misguided Policy, Unintended Consequences

   Proposals to increase the minimum wage have re-emerged in provinces across the country. For instance, the Alberta government recently pledged to hike the provincial minimum wage from $10.20 to $15 per hour by 2018, already taking the first step with a $1 ...

8. Who is at higher risk of persistent poverty in Canada?

   When discussing poverty in Canada, it is important to draw a distinction between people who experience short versus long term spells in low income. After all, the policies that will help Canadians may differ based on whether their ...

9. Misleading claims about ‘poverty’ in Canada fail to distinguish between temporary and persistent spells

   Claims that “10 per cent of Canadians” live in poverty understandably sound dire. But those claims about the extent of poverty in Canada often focus on a snapshot in time of Canadians with low incomes. This is problematic and in fact ...

10. Raising the minimum wage is not the right policy to help struggling families

    Appeared in the Vancouver Sun The B.C. government recently announced it will increase the minimum wage in September to $10.45 per hour. Thereafter, annual increases will be automatically pegged at the rate of inflation. Shortly after the announcement, ...