Distribution analysis has advanced remarkably in recent years, and this is a valuable application of its principles to a Canadian context. The book provides an extensive survey of recent literature and a new source of income and wealth distribution data for Ontario, drawn from newly available microdata sets. It also presents an evaluation of the data as a basis for measuring inequality in the distribution of economic and well-being. The empirical results illustrate how incomes vary significantly with age according to labour market attachment and experience, educational attainment and occupation, transfer receipts, and investment benefits. Similarly, strong age effects on net worth account reflect life-cycle patterns in asset holdings and debts typically associated with family investment in housing and financial adjustments for retirement. Differences in family size and composition have a substantial effect on the structure of family economic well-being. The inequality effects of adjusting for accrued capital gains and net worth holdings can also be quite significant. It is found that the distributional effects of CPP net benefits are considerable, although they are not as equalizing as one may have expected because of marked cohort effects. The detailed findings suggest that the life-cycle framework is a very useful one for evaluating the distributional effects of certain government programs, particularly intertemporal ones, and they underline the need for a range of different types of policies to address low income problems. The study urges greater recognition of the inequality of treatment and opportunity among different groups of the population. It also points out that conventional income distribution figures are only very imperfect estimates of the state of inequality in the underlying distribution of economic well-being.

"Rising income inequality has been at the forefront of public debate in Canada in recent years, yet there is still much to be learned about the economic forces driving the distribution of earnings and income in this country and how they might evolve in coming years. With research showing that the tax-and-transfer system is less effective than in the past in counteracting growing income disparities, the need for policy-makers to understand the factors at play is all the more urgent. The Institute for Research on Public Policy, in collaboration with the Canadian Labour Market and Skills Researcher Network, has gathered some of the country’s leading experts to provide new evidence on the causes and effects of rising income inequality in Canada and to consider the role of policy. Their research and analysis constitutes a comprehensive review of Canadian inequality trends in recent decades, including changing earnings and income dynamics among middle--class and top earners, wage and job polarization across provinces, and persistent poverty among vulnerable groups. The authors also examine the changing role of education and unionization, as well as the complex interplay of redistributive policies and politics, in order to propose new directions for policy. Amid growing anxieties about the economic prospects of the middle class, Income Inequality: The Canadian Story will inform the public discourse on this issue of central concern for all Canadians."--Publisher's website.

In the United States, some populations suffer from far greater disparities in health than others. Those disparities are caused not only by fundamental differences in health status across segments of the population, but also because of inequities in factors that impact health status, so-called determinants of health. Only part of an individual's health status depends on his or her behavior and choice; community-wide problems like poverty, unemployment, poor education, inadequate housing, poor public transportation, interpersonal violence, and decaying neighborhoods also contribute to health inequities, as well as the historic and ongoing interplay of structures, policies, and norms that shape lives. When these factors are not optimal in a community, it does not mean they are intractable: such inequities can be mitigated by social policies that can shape health in powerful ways. Communities in Action: Pathways to Health Equity seeks to delineate the causes of and the solutions to health inequities in the United States. This report focuses on what communities can do to promote health equity, what actions are needed by the many and varied stakeholders that are part of communities or support them, as well as the root causes and structural barriers that need to be overcome.

Social Inequality in Canada brings a comparative perspective to the question of the uniqueness of Canadian society. Do Canadians believe they can succeed on the basis of their own abilities? And how do they compare with Americans, Germans, Italians, Australians and Russians? There is much debate as to how Canadians differ from or resemble citizens of other countries, particularly the United States.

This book investigates the role of wealth in achieving sustainable rural economic development. The authors define wealth as all assets net of liabilities that can contribute to well-being, and they provide examples of many forms of capital – physical, financial, human, natural, social, and others. They propose a conceptual framework for rural wealth creation that considers how multiple forms of wealth provide opportunities for rural development, and how development strategies affect the dynamics of wealth. They also provide a new accounting framework for measuring wealth stocks and flows. These conceptual frameworks are employed in case study chapters on measuring rural wealth and on rural wealth creation strategies. Rural Wealth Creation makes numerous contributions to research on sustainable rural development. Important distinctions are drawn to help guide wealth measurement, such as the difference between the wealth located within a region and the wealth owned by residents of a region, and privately owned versus publicly owned wealth. Case study chapters illustrate these distinctions and demonstrate how different forms of wealth can be measured. Several key hypotheses are proposed about the process of rural wealth creation, and these are investigated by case study chapters assessing common rural development strategies, such as promoting rural energy industries and amenity-based development. Based on these case studies, a typology of rural wealth creation strategies is proposed and an approach to mapping the potential of such strategies in different contexts is demonstrated. This book will be relevant to students, researchers, and policy makers looking at rural community development, sustainable economic development, and wealth measurement.

Inequality is up. Decent work is down. Free market fundamentalism has been exposed as a tragic failure. In a job market upended by COVID-19—with Canadians caught in the grip of precarious labour, stagnant wages, a climate crisis, and the steady creep of automation—an ever-louder chorus of voices calls for a liveable and obligation-free basic income. Could a basic income guarantee be the way forward to democratize security and intervene where the market economy and social programs fail? Jamie Swift and Elaine Power scrutinize the politics and the potential behind a radical proposal in a post-pandemic world: that wealth should be built by a society, not individuals. And that we all have an unconditional right to a fair share. In these pages, Swift and Power bring to the forefront the deeply personal stories of Canadians who participated in the 2017–2019 Ontario Basic Income Pilot; examine the essential literature and history behind the movement; and answer basic income’s critics from both the right and left.

Understanding wealth—who has it, how they acquired it, how they preserve it—is crucial to addressing challenges facing the United States. Edward Wolff’s account of patterns in the accumulation and distribution of U.S. wealth since 1900 provides a sober bedrock of facts and analysis. It will become an indispensable resource for future public debate.