Armine Yalnizyan (MIR 1985) is an economist who has focused on serving the community since her graduation from the Centre in 1985. After 10 years as program director with the Social Planning Council of Metropolitan Toronto, in 1998 she authored a ground-breaking report, The Growing Gap, about income inequality in Canada. Through this, and her many other publications (reports, articles and chapters in books) she has contributed to Canada's public discussion of social and economic equality. In 2002, Armine became the first recipient of the Atkinson Foundation Award for Economic Justice. She is a founding member of the Progressive Economics Forum; and a board member of the Public Interest Advocacy Centre.
Very profitable corporations demanding sharp decreases in wages, taxes.
by Armine Yalnizyan
Capitalism has entered an ugly new era, one that may work well for the shareholders of world, but not for the rest of us.
I couldn't help but notice that, on the very same day Caterpillar shuttered the doors of its London, Ontario locomotive plant and headed to low-wage Indiana, the Wall Street Journal reported federal corporate tax receipts as a share of profits had dropped to their lowest level in at least 40 years in the US. Sadly, that's not just an American story.
Lower taxes and lower wages: it's a one-two punch that has been hard to duck in the post-crisis period, and not because business is on the ropes. Like Caterpillar, the American business sector as a whole has been booking record-breaking profits.
The wage floor is sagging, pulling downwards the prospects for everyone but the elite.