Income Inequality ─ The Canadian Story

Rising income inequality has been at the forefront of public debate in Canada in recent years, yet there is still much to learn about the economic forces driving the distribution of earnings and income in this country and how they might evolve in the future. With research showing that the tax-and-transfer system is losing the ability to counteract income disparity, the need for policy-makers to understand the factors at play is all the more urgent. Income Inequality provides a comprehensive review of Canadian inequality trends, including changing earnings and income dynamics among the middle class and top earners, wage and job polarization across provinces, and persistent poverty among vulnerable groups. The Institute for Research on Public Policy (IRPP), in collaboration with the Canadian Labour Market and Skills Researcher Network (CLSRN), presents new evidence by some of the country’s leading experts on the impact of skills and education, unionization and labour relations laws, as well as the complex interplay of redistributive policies and politics over time. Amid growing anxieties about the economic prospects of the middle class, Income Inequality will serve to inform the public discourse on inequality, an issue that ultimately concerns all Canadians.

David A. Green is a professor in the Vancouver School of Economics at the University of British Columbia and an IRPP research fellow. W. Craig Riddell is Royal Bank Faculty Research Professor in the Vancouver School of Economics at the University of British Columbia, an IRPP research fellow, and academic director of the CLSRN. France St-Hilaire is vice-president of research at IRPP.