Canucks believe middle-class dream replaced by nightmare
< >
New data out from top pollster Ekos show Canadians are down on their own economic lot and feel their fortunes slipping.
Back in 2002, just over a fifth of Canadians considered themselves working-class. Yet now, based on answers given over Sept. 15-Oct. 1, that number sits at 37%.
Where has this growth come from?
A dropoff in the middle-class cohort. Almost 70% put themselves in that bracket 15 years ago, but now it’s plummeted to 43%.
Meanwhile, those who called themselves “poor” were previously in the single digits and now take up 13%.
The only constant? The upper class has stayed around 4% all of this time. Must be nice.
Now is the time to take a good look at whether the Liberal government’s schtick about championing the middle class is really living up to all its hype.
That middle-class tax cut that brought the rates down from 22% to 20.5%? That has actually been of greatest benefit to those earning in the $90,000-$200,000 window, as Sun columnist Tom Parkin has repeatedly pointed out.
Consumers in both Alberta and Ontario saw a hit to their wallets on Jan. 1, when their respective carbon pricing schemes went live.
While these were provincial measures, they’re in compliance with a federally mandated pledge that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau wants to replicate nationwide.
Then there are the small-business tax changes that, as it stands, will hit a variety of middle-class businesses and have a whole slew of unintended consequences on their customers and employees.
And don’t forget the larger-than-promised debt that’s being piled up over this four-year term. One reason former NDP leader Tom Mulcair campaigned for balanced budgets is because he knew the Regular Joe would sooner or later be billed for the total and all the interest payments.
These are all awfully regressive measures for a PM who’s supposed to be the most progressive politician in the land.
You can get a dozen socialist thinkers in a room to tell you how a bunch of newfangled big government programs they’ve concocted to re-engineer the economy this way and that way will end with us all living happy, prosperous lives together.
But as we wait for utopia, the rest of us still have to foot the bill for these experiments.
It’s inevitable that this involves nickel and diming the little guy in the process.
The Ekos poll isn’t a crystal ball telling us how all of this tinkering by the government will play in the decades ahead, but it certainly gives us a real-time view of how people feel.
The pollster sums it up well: “The essence of the middle-class bargain was that hard work, innovation, and skill would yield a better future than one’s parents and that your kids, in turn, would do better. Get a secure job with benefits, buy a home, retire in security were the touchstones of the middle-class bargain. That bargain is now a smouldering wreck.”
< >
New data out from top pollster Ekos show Canadians are down on their own economic lot and feel their fortunes slipping.
Back in 2002, just over a fifth of Canadians considered themselves working-class. Yet now, based on answers given over Sept. 15-Oct. 1, that number sits at 37%.
Where has this growth come from?
A dropoff in the middle-class cohort. Almost 70% put themselves in that bracket 15 years ago, but now it’s plummeted to 43%.
Meanwhile, those who called themselves “poor” were previously in the single digits and now take up 13%.
The only constant? The upper class has stayed around 4% all of this time. Must be nice.
Now is the time to take a good look at whether the Liberal government’s schtick about championing the middle class is really living up to all its hype.
That middle-class tax cut that brought the rates down from 22% to 20.5%? That has actually been of greatest benefit to those earning in the $90,000-$200,000 window, as Sun columnist Tom Parkin has repeatedly pointed out.
Consumers in both Alberta and Ontario saw a hit to their wallets on Jan. 1, when their respective carbon pricing schemes went live.
While these were provincial measures, they’re in compliance with a federally mandated pledge that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau wants to replicate nationwide.
Then there are the small-business tax changes that, as it stands, will hit a variety of middle-class businesses and have a whole slew of unintended consequences on their customers and employees.
And don’t forget the larger-than-promised debt that’s being piled up over this four-year term. One reason former NDP leader Tom Mulcair campaigned for balanced budgets is because he knew the Regular Joe would sooner or later be billed for the total and all the interest payments.
These are all awfully regressive measures for a PM who’s supposed to be the most progressive politician in the land.
You can get a dozen socialist thinkers in a room to tell you how a bunch of newfangled big government programs they’ve concocted to re-engineer the economy this way and that way will end with us all living happy, prosperous lives together.
But as we wait for utopia, the rest of us still have to foot the bill for these experiments.
It’s inevitable that this involves nickel and diming the little guy in the process.
The Ekos poll isn’t a crystal ball telling us how all of this tinkering by the government will play in the decades ahead, but it certainly gives us a real-time view of how people feel.
The pollster sums it up well: “The essence of the middle-class bargain was that hard work, innovation, and skill would yield a better future than one’s parents and that your kids, in turn, would do better. Get a secure job with benefits, buy a home, retire in security were the touchstones of the middle-class bargain. That bargain is now a smouldering wreck.”
