Millennials, boomers fret about tough economic future
Joe Friesen / Globe & Mail
The perception of a growing generational divide seems to be taking hold among millennials and their baby boomer parents, as both groups now tend to believe that the economic future looks bleak for the younger generation, a new survey shows.
The survey, which was commissioned by the Broadbent Institute, found that millennials fear their working lives will be governed by precarious, short-term arrangements and that the gulf between rich and poor will grow. Their parents, meanwhile, worry that the younger generation will not produce enough income to support the social programs they’re counting on in old age.
“Parents across this country are fretting about the economic prospects of their kids. They’re worried their kids aren’t going to have the same economic opportunities as they did,” said Rick Smith, executive director of the Broadbent Institute, a left-wing think tank. “What really leaps out at me here is there’s a very high degree of angst.”
A feeling of anxiety about the economic prospects of a younger generation is not uncommon historically. What’s not clear is whether today’s fears are justified. Youth unemployment is at 13.6 per cent, unchanged over the last year and down from the peak of a recession that continues to send ripples through the global economy. This is also a period of significant technological change and it’s unclear what impact that will have over the long term. What’s clear is that a sense of pessimism, justified or not, is gaining momentum.
Baby boomers are more likely to say that their children face worse economic times than they did as young people. Just less than 50 per cent of the boomers surveyed said their children’s economic opportunities are worse than their own at that age, compared with 40 per cent that said they were better and 12 per cent that said they were the same, according to the online survey by Abacus. More than 55 per cent of boomers said they worried the younger generation won’t support social programs through taxes.
Millennials are expecting a different kind of working world from the one their parents entered. They expect to work a mixture of permanent and temporary jobs, compared with the more stable arrangements their parents had. They say lower rates of unionization will make good jobs harder to find and are more likely to say they don’t know anyone with an employer-provided pension, the survey said. Sixty per cent say the gap between rich and poor will increase over their lifetime, and only 16 per cent believe it will shrink.
Frances Woolley, an economist at Carleton University, said there’s no question today’s labour market is more unequal. This is a “winner take all” society, as some call it, where the greatest income gains go to those at the top of the spectrum and some, particularly those without a university education, will face a difficult job market. But one thing to consider is that the baby boomers had the good fortune to be born at the right time, an era of peace and prosperity, Prof. Woolley said.
“The older generation has had such a blessed life,” Prof. Woolley said. “Some generations are born in better times than others. That’s just the way it is.”
Matthew Cuthbert is a 27-year-old graduate of the University of Toronto. He has experienced the millennial’s anxiety. He has nearly $50,000 in student and credit-card debt and works at a community centre in customer service, earning $31,000 a year. He and many of his friends are the precariat, he said, a new class of precarious worker. It’s not what he was expecting, but after seven months unemployed, he’s grateful for the work.
“It’s frustrating to watch this break down. When I started school there was so much more optimism around the economy,” he said. “It’s far from the ideal situation that any of us anticipated.“
Younger Canadians feel angst about their financial prospects
Don Curren / Wall Street Journal
Canadians in the millennial and boomer generations disagree about much, but hold one thing in common: they’re deeply anxious about the economic future of young Canadians.
That was the key finding of a survey of Canadians between 20 and 30–the “millennial” generation–who are in the work force, and boomers, or those aged between 50 and 65, by the left-leaning Broadbent Institute.
“It puts [some numbers], for the first time, to the fact there’s deep angst, among both millennials and their parents, about the reduced economic opportunities available to young people, today,”Rick Smith, executive direction of the institute, told Canada Real Time.
“The scale of the angst certainly took us by surprise,” he said. “The strength of feeling here is really quite astonishing.”
The online survey, conducted last month, found that 41% of the millennials expect their working lives to comprise a mix of contract work and permanent jobs, with 39% anticipating a succession of permanent jobs.
That contrasts markedly with the experience of the boomers, 66% of whom reported working lives consisting of a string of permanent jobs and only 10% of whom experienced the combination of contracts and permanent positions expected by the millennials.
A near majority of 49% of the boomers said things are worse for their children today, while 40% believe their kids’ economic opportunities are better than theirs were when they were the same age. More millennials—56%–said they expected their opportunities to be the same as or worse than their parents’.
On the housing front, more than half of boomers are certain they’ll own their home at retirement, but only a third of millennials are as confident.
Mr. Smith said the relative pessimism about the prospects of working Canadians, both among millennials and boomers, reflects their “lived experiences” in the last few years.
The survey found that 92% of boomers know someone with a workplace pension, with 51% of them knowing some or many. That compares with only 30% of millennials who know at least some people who have a workplace pension, and 20% knowing no one with such a benefit.
A big majority of both millennials and boomers agreed free-trade agreements have made Canadian businesses more profitable by making it cheaper to make things in other countries. But a majority of these same respondents also said trade agreements have cost Canadians jobs and opportunities.
Overall, the survey pointed to concern about the prospects of younger Canadians now, but also into the future, Mr. Smith said.
“This concern is not only for economic prospects of youth currently, it’s also a realization of economic prospects for youth in the future are likely to be dimmed,” he said.
“People don’t view this as a blip. They’re not anticipating that things are going to bounce back, any time soon,” Mr. Smith said.
Fair Elections Act attacks participation and debate
For many months the Conservative government has blatantly taken away by fiat the right to strike of union members within federal jurisdiction. They are now threatening to shut down environmental charities that are talking about climate change. And they are ramming through Parliament changes to the elections act that will almost certainly mean that many thousands of Canadians will not be able to vote.
Taken together these actions restrict freedom of association, limit freedom of speech and curtail a citizen’s right to vote. In short, there is a steady chipping away at the underpinnings of democracy.
Inspired by the voter suppression tactics used by the Republicans to disenfranchise marginalized groups in the U.S., the new election law would make it harder for certain groups to vote. The law would end the ability to “vouch” for the bona fides of a neighbour, a tool that allowed 120,000 voters — disproportionately aboriginal, youth and seniors — to cast ballots in the last election.
Conservatives claim that vouching allows for widespread fraud, a charge that experts deny.
The move is part of a broader sweep of changes that also serves to suppress the vote. For example, the new law will remove the ability of electors to use voter identification cards. Elections Canada had only in the last few years piloted the use of the cards to make it easier to cast a ballot at polling sites serving seniors’ residences, long-term care facilities, aboriginal reserves and on-campus student residences. The conclusion of this pilot project was that the “initiative made the voter identification process run more smoothly and reduced the need to ask the responsible authorities for letters of attestation of residence.”
In other words, voter identification cards had been successful in enfranchising these groups. Conservative MP Brad Butt, a member of the committee dealing with this measure, has been compelled to retract a completely fabricated story he had told in the House about this so-called fraud. Despite his apparent breach of parliamentary privilege, the Conservatives rejected an opposition bid to have a House committee look into Butt’s false claims that he saw voter identification cards stolen from recycling boxes to commit fraud.
Just as anti-democratic are changes that amount to a massive clawback to Elections Canada’s outreach mandate. This would severely restrict the agency’s public education and information programs, essentially prohibiting Elections Canada from encouraging people to vote. Gone would be its ability to support programs in our schools, like Student Vote’s mock elections, or the outreach work in aboriginal communities. To believe it’s accidental that these groups normally prefer the opposition parties is to believe in the tooth fairy.
The government’s bill also denies Elections Canada the kinds of powers it needs to investigate serious electoral wrongdoing, such as the robocalls fraud perpetrated by Conservatives in 2011 — the most important new powers requested by Elections Canada.
It is fitting, then, that the new law is being rammed through Parliament. Once more, Harper is using closure — a way to end debate early — to prevent people asking, for example, why school programs that teach kids how to vote are so bad. Why let MPs actually debate democracy when it’s not valuable enough to educate children about? The government has also voted down an opposition motion to have public hearings on a bill that will make such fundamental changes in our electoral system.
But such is the new normal in Ottawa, where sweeping bills that change dozens of laws are rammed through without debate. The government is also vowing to silence environmental charities because they engage in “political” activity. In Canada and other democracies such activist charities are widely seen as core institutions in a democratic civil society.
Canadian charities helped stop acid rain and smoking in restaurants. Their advocacy helped bring about mandatory seatbelts and led to tough drunk driving laws. Charities participating in public debate are helping the whole world understand how environmental degradation is threatening the planet.
While shutting down environmental charities would make it harder for Canadian voices to join others to tell the world what’s happening to the planet, it is also the case that the U.S. and Europe see the Canadian government’s indifference to the environment as a negative in reaching major decisions on trade in oil.
Having spent more than two decades in the House of Commons, I can think of no prime minister who has been so focused on undermining electoral participation and public debate.
We have a tradition of Conservatives, New Democrats and Liberals respecting everyone’s right to have a say. Past governments have avoided turning democratic process into a tool for one party’s advantage. Changes in electoral processes were always based on all-party consensus.
That Harper derides such all-party consensus is, sadly, no surprise. That his robotic backbench will unquestioningly obey is not news either. Except now, the victims of his disregard for debate aren’t only the people we elect. It’s those doing the electing as well.
Photo: midnightglory. Used under a Creative Commons BY-SA 2.0 licence.
The other costly tax break for the rich
This article originally appeared in the Globe & Mail.
The Conservative Party’s 2011 election platform titled “Stephen Harper’s Low-Tax Plan” promised a bountiful menu of tax goodies. The government has delivered appetizers such as the Children’s Art Tax Credit and the Family Caregiver Tax Credit as well as an amuse-bouche in the form of a Search and Rescue Volunteers Tax Credit.
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