Workers

In last month's Fall Economic Statement, the federal government promised to enhance the Working Income Tax Benefit (WITB) through additional annual funding of $500 Million starting in 2019. Canadians were invited to provide input on how the additional funding should be used, with the details to be announced in the 2018 federal budget.

This Labour Day solidarity takes on a renewed importance and our work as progressives acquires a new urgency. Over the summer, white nationalist and racist right-wing mobilizing turned deadly in Charlottesville, Virginia as the ideology of hate grows increasingly visible across North America. Here in Canada, that same ideology led to the massacre of six men at prayer in a Quebec City mosque at the hands of an Islamophobe.

This week, the Wellesley Institute published The Colour Coded Labour Market By The Numbers: A National Household Survey Analysis.

What the report sought to do was look at racialized labour market data in Ontario and compare it to previous work done using 2006 Census data, to see how the trends in the labour experience of racialized Ontarians have changed over time. 

As is well-known, the proportion of women who are active in the paid work force has grown very rapidly since the 1970s, transforming the workplace and society as a whole in the process.  The rising participation rate of women was a major economic force over the past three decades in that it kept real family incomes afloat despite stagnant, if not falling, male wages.