>A new report by Statistics Canada has shown that people entering the
>work force today are much worse off than people entering the workforce
>in 1980.
>
>The major difference from 1980 to today was the introduction of NAFTA.
>NAFTA was introduced in 1988 with the promise of more prosperity for
>Canadians. Many labour groups and citizens warned that if this agreement
>was signed, our standard of living would drop and the Canadian dollar
>would drop against the American dollar. Both events have occurred.
>
>After NAFTA, foreign ownership of Canadian companies also rose. Today we
>have a lower standard of living while we work for foreign owned companies.
>
>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_ownership_of_companies_of_Canada
>
>http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2008/05/01/censusfeature.html
>
>
>Income gaps grow, as Canada's have-nots get left behind
>Last Updated: Thursday, May 1, 2008 | 4:55 PM ET Comments113Recommend102
>By Tom McFeat CBC News
>
>The Canadian economy is a star among G7 economies, the statistics tell
>us. It's churning out jobs, housing prices are still rising, inflation
>is at a generation low.
>
>So overall, we're doing relatively well. Overall, of course, is one
>pretty broad brushstroke. It turns out that the big picture of rising
>prosperity hides some less-than-rosy vignettes when it comes to some key
>reference points — how much we make and how we're doing relative to others.
>
>For those who think that recent immigrants, younger Canadians, and the
>lowest-earning members of society might finally be making more financial
>headway, Statistics Canada's most recent income reality check came as an
>alarming wake-up call that all is still not well, critics say.
>
>Statistics Canada's findings are based on 2006 census figures so there's
>no arguing with the data — everyone's included. The census stats prove
>that some of the income gaps between the most and least advantaged in
>this country are wide — and growing ever wider.
>
>First some good news: If you belong to a family with children, you
>belong to the richest earning family group, and you're making a lot more
>than similar families did in 1980. The median income for couples with
>children — the point where half earned more and half less — rose more
>than 20 per cent in a generation to $82,943 in 2005. That's mainly due
>to the jump in the number of families where both partners worked.
>
>Even couples with no children saw their inflation-adjusted incomes rise
>in that period — up 14.6 per cent to $59,834.
>
>But you can slice and dice raw data many ways, and some of the
>dissections Statistics Canada carried out show that some groups are
>falling way behind.
>The poor get poorer
>
>Let's look at how the poorest working Canadians have been faring — those
>at the bottom 20 per cent of the income pyramid. Between 1980 and 2005,
>this group's full-time income fell by 20.6 per cent, after adjusting for
>inflation. The median income for this low-income group dropped from
>$19,367 in 1980 to $15,375 in 2005 (all figures in 2005 dollars).
>
>For the lowest-earning families, the median income fell 9.1 per cent
>over the 25-year period to $14,176.
>
>"Earnings for this group have fallen steadily since 1980," Statistics
>Canada noted.
>Group 1980 median income (2005) 2005 median income Change
>Bottom 20%% $19,367 $15,375 -20.6%%
>Middle 20%% $41,348 $41,401 +0.1%%
>Top 20%% $74,084 $86,253 +16.4%%
>Source: Statistics Canada

>
>Those in the middle 20 per cent income group saw their earnings
>stagnate. Statistics Canada said this group's median full-time income
>was $41,348 in 1980. In 2005, that figure was just $53 a year higher — a
>net gain of a buck a week.
>
>The richest group — the top 20 per cent of income earners — saw their
>median incomes rise by 16.4 per cent to $86,253, after taking inflation
>into account. The faster income growth of Canada's richest meant a big
>increase in the number of those earning at least $100,000 a year. In
>1980, 3.4 per cent of full-timers reached that earnings plateau (in 2005
>dollars). By 2005, that high-earning club was a lot more crowded, as 6.5
>per cent of earners were in that category: more than 600,000 people.
>
>Many observers say this widening income gap shouldn't be happening,
>given the recent strength of the Canadian economy.
>
>"It's outrageous," said Ken Georgetti, president of the Canadian Labour
>Congress. "We've enjoyed the largest sustained period of growth since
>the Depression and ordinary Canadians are falling behind," he said.
>
>"The only people that are getting ahead are the people who don't need
>the money."
>Younger Canadians get poorer
>
>The census figures also show that younger workers were earning less in
>2005 than their parents did a generation earlier. That was especially
>true for young men.
>
>For the 25- to 29-year-old set, Statistics Canada paints a picture of
>falling fortunes. The median earnings of young men tumbled from $43,767
>in 1980 to $37,680 in 2005. For women of the same age, the median income
>fell by a much smaller $709 in that period to $32,104.
>
>Median full-time earnings: 25- to 29-year olds (2005 dollars)
>Year Men Women M/F ratio
>1980 $43,767 $32,813 0.75
>2005 $37,680 $32,104 0.85
>Source: Statistics Canada
>
>"The next generation is really going to suffer," said Armine Yalnizyan,
>senior economist with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. "This
>might be the first generation that clearly is not going to do better
>than their parents' generation," she told CBCNews.ca.
>
>Niels Veldhuis, an analyst at the Fraser Institute said young workers
>are making less because they're getting more education, delaying their
>entrance into the labour force, "which obviously delays the increase in
>incomes that we experience as we get more experienced or more skilled."
>
>Statistics Canada analyst Rene Morissette agreed that the trend to stay
>in school longer is part of the reason for the drop. But he says the
>figures also show that young men seem to have difficulty finding
>full-time work these days once they leave school, and once they do find
>work, the jobs don't pay like they used to.
>Recent immigrants lose ground
>
>But it is among recent immigrants that the growing income gap is most
>noticeable.
>
>Not only do recent immigrants make far less than their Canadian-born
>counterparts, the figures show that the most educated immigrants who
>came to Canada recently are losing ground to almost everybody, including
>similarly-educated immigrants who arrived in 1980.
>
>StatsCan's figures show that recent immigrants — those who arrived from
>2000 to 2004 — earned 85 cents for every dollar earned by Canadian-born
>workers in 1980. By 2005, that had shrunk to just 63 cents.
>
>Median earnings (2005 dollars) of 25- to 54-year olds
>Year Recent immigrant men with degrees Canadian-born men with degrees
>1980 $48,541 $63,040
>1990 $38,351 $61,332
>2000 $35,816 $61,505
>2005 $30,332 $62,556
>Source: Statistics Canada
>
>The immigrant versus Canadian-born gap widened even though the
>educational qualifications of the recent immigrants rose much faster
>than Canadian-born workers.
>
>Education seemed to provide no insulation for this group; in fact, the
>most recent university-educated newcomers made even less than
>Canadian-born workers who had a high school education.
>
>The 2006 census figures show that recent immigrant men with university
>degrees earned just 48 cents for every dollar earned by Canadians. In
>1980, they earned 77 cents.
>
>Statistics Canada lays part of the blame for the lost ground among the
>better-educated immigrants on recent job losses in the information and
>communication technologies sector. In 2005, the agency said half of all
>recent immigrant men with university educations had earned their degrees
>in either computer sciences or engineering. Only one in six
>Canadian-born grads had similar majors.
>
>But those who work with recent immigrants say it's more than a story of
>the dot-com collapse.
>
>"Primarily, I think it is the lack of recognition of their skills, the
>lack of recognition of their credentials," Eyob Naizghi, executive
>director of Mosaic, a Vancouver-based non-profit that works with recent
>immigrants, told CBCNews.ca.
>
>His organization did a study in 1997 that found that it took newcomers
>to Canada an average of 15 years to catch up to the incomes of their
>Canadian-born neighbours. The most recent Statistics Canada study
>suggests conditions have worsened since then and many won't ever catch up.
>
>"Any policy maker should be alarmed at that," Naizghi said.
>
>The income gap has worsened for immigrant women, too. Just ask Alice
>Xie. She was trained as a bookeeper in China. In Toronto, she toils for
>minimum wage at a clothing factory.
>
>"I want to get a professional job because I have some experience," she
>told CBC News. But companies want Canadian experience, she says, and
>English is not her first language.
>
>Whatever the cause, it's clear that the good life is still proving to be
>much more elusive for immigrants than for their Canadian-born neighbours.