Most low income Canadians move up income ladder: Study • Canadian payrolls show Sept. job losses, contrasts with other data • P.E.I. releases HST implementation details • Manitoba to scrap minimum wage exemption • Private sector adds fewer-than-expected jobs in November: ADP
Most low income Canadians move up income ladder: Study
CALGARY — Over a span of 10 years, four out of five of Canada’s lowest income earners moved up the income ladder, according to a new study.
One in five Canadians in the lowest income group eventually moved up to the highest income group over a 19-year period, according to the study, published by the Fraser Institute, a Canadian independent public policy think-tank.
Using specially requested data from Statistics Canada, the study, Measuring Income Mobility in Canada, divides Canadians into five groups based on their initial income (what they earn through wages and salaries before taxes), then tracks how their income changed over time frames of five, 10 and 19 years. If someone started in the lowest income group in one year (the bottom 20 per cent of income earners), but moved to a higher group after several years, she experienced upward income mobility.
The study found considerable upward mobility over all time periods, but individuals initially in the lowest income group experienced the most upward mobility over all time periods. Over the 10-year period between 1990 and 2000, 83 per cent of those who started in the bottom 20 per cent of income earners moved to a higher income category. Over the 19-year period measured (1990 to 2009), 87 per cent moved up.
Canadian payrolls show Sept. job losses, contrasts with other data
OTTAWA (Reuters) — A secondary employment report for Canada showed total non-farm payrolls fell 52,500 in September from August, sharply contradicting an earlier report of outsized job gains that month.
Payroll employment fell in the month after six consecutive monthly increases, with the largest declines in manufacturing; accommodation and food services; administrative and support services, and other services, said Statistics Canada.
The report — the Survey of Employment, Payroll and Hours — obtains data from a business census whereas the country's most closely watched employment report is the Labour Force Survey, which is based on interviews with households.
The market-moving Labour Force Survey on Oct. 5 showed the Canadian economy added 52,100 jobs in September, almost all of them full-time.
The unemployment rate rose to 7.4 per cent from 7.3 per cent in August as more people participated in the labour market, Statistics Canada said.
P.E.I. releases HST implementation details
CHARLOTTETOWN — As of April 1, 2013, HST will apply to most goods and services that are currently subject to the goods and services tax (GST) in Prince Edward Island.
Rules have been developed to allow for a smooth transition to the harmonized sales tax (HST) system, according to the P.E.I. government. General transitional rules for the implementation of HST have been developed with the intention of avoiding double taxation and non-taxation for consumers and businesses in P.E.I.
The new proposed rules explain the procedures for situations for the following:
• whether the GST and the provincial sales tax (PST), or the HST, is to be applied for transactions beginning before April 1, 2013, and are completed after that date
• what businesses need to do to conclude the PST system
• special transitional rules specific to an industry or business.
Manitoba to scrap minimum wage exemption
WINNIPEG — Manitoba is introducing an amendment to eliminate an exemption that allows employees with disabilities to be paid less than minimum wage, announced Family Services and Labour Minister Jennifer Howard, who is responsible for persons with disabilities.
Under the proposed amendment, the province would no longer issue permits to allow employees to be paid below minimum wage based on a physical or mental disability.
There are less than 20 permits currently in place and those will be allowed to continue, based on consultations with the individuals and their families. In the mid-1990s, there were over 200 such exemptions granted.
Private sector adds fewer-than-expected jobs in November: ADP
NEW YORK (Reuters) — Private-sector employers in the United States added 118,000 jobs in November, shy of economists' expectations, a report by a payrolls processor showed on Dec. 5.
Economists surveyed by Reuters had forecast the ADP National Employment Report would show a gain of 125,000 jobs.
October's private payrolls were revised slightly down to an increase of 157,000 from the previously reported 158,000.
The report is jointly developed with Moody's Analytics.
