Recent trends in inequality and poverty across Western Canada, a region known for its energy resources, seem to correspond to movements in energy prices, with much of the rise in inequality and decline in poverty taking place during the energy boom from the mid-1990s to the mid-2000s. These...

Between 1970 and 2005, the share of total earnings in the Canadian labour market going to middle-class workers has fallen significantly, while the earnings share of higher-earnings workers has risen. Is the middle-class being hollowed out? A paper by CLSRN affiliate Charles Beach (Queen’s...

In the energy-rich region of Western Canada, inequality rose over the past two decades, while poverty declined, begging the question of whether the recent energy boom was a contributing factor. This study uses measures of inequality and poverty across local labor markets that vary in energy...

We use Census and Labour Force Survey (LFS) data for the period from 1971 to 2012 to investigate whether the Canadian wage and employment structures have polarized, that is, whether wages and employment have grown more in high and low than in middle paying occupations. We find that there has...

Increasing inequality cannot be a long-run steady state – i.e. a trend that can continue indefinitely. Because the bottom 99% and top 1% in the U.S. and Canada have had very different rates of growth of market income among since the 1980s, consumption and savings flows have necessarily...