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Armine Yalnizyan Profile picture
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24 Aug, 9 tweets, 2 min read
Affordability is top of mind in all elections.

Is housing>childcare re importance...or votes?

3.5M households with kids (1+ parent), + plenty of HHds deferring having kids because of costs, + grandparents who help. Big voting bloc.

Est'd 2.4M households in core housing need.
It's assumed that there are more votes for housing than for childcare, but the numbers are not far off.
The pandemic saw big drop off in women's labour force participation for women 55+ (chunk of whom are grandmas, trying to help out their kids because there. is. no. childcare.)
Too many people are freaking out that they can't have the life they thought they'd be living by now not just because they can't buy a house, or rental costs are pushing them out of the places they want to live, but because they can't form a family or support it if they have one.
This is existential stuff.
On the human scale, it feels to many maybe more immediate and scary than the climate chaos that is truly existential.
For both housing and childcare, the solution isn't just more money in your pocket.
Put more money in your pocket and landlords/sellers and providers of care just jack the prices up (rent controls help, but what about quality and quantity? Who controls childcare costs? Nooobody.)
In both cases, supply (both quantity and quality) is critical. In both cases, the market hasn't delivered what people want, because young people don't make enough, because "the market" operates on the Zellers' Principle of the 1990s: the lowest price is the law.
Reminds me of a conversation at a board meeting when The Amazing Rhonda Rhoffey asked me: Armine, can can you explain why the Invisible Hand is slapping us?
Anyhow, the story isn't just about putting more money in your pocket, which has been the frame for 30+ years.
policyalternatives.ca/publications/m…
I keep dipping in this well, but I constantly find this framing is the correct underlying tension. Market values or health values.
Sources for numbers in first tweet.
# of households with kids, by age of kids www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/cv.…
Estimate of # of households in core housing need
policyalternatives.ca/publications/m…

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More from @ArmineYalnizyan

Armine Yalnizyan Profile picture
7 Sep
Surprised that the campaign hasn't yet featured more debate about the 8 bilateral fed/prov/terr deals for early learning and childcare, 50 years in the making.
WAY more than an affordability issue. Critical to equity, economic recovery, and future economic potential.
#Elxn44
Some key facts about the Care Economy (paid activity in health/social assistance plus education sectors):

12.6% of GDP , and 21.3% of all jobs in June 2021, up from 12.3% of GDP and 20.4% of all jobs in February 2020, before the pandemic hit.
Nothing rivals its scale
#Elxn44
In the past year, unfilled vacancies shot up 53% in hospitals, and 49% in nursing and residential care facilities. Almost 100,000 healthcare sector jobs went unfilled by Q2 2021 (in a workforce of over 2.5 million people).
#CareEconomyDataRoom
#Elxn44
Read 20 tweets
Armine Yalnizyan Profile picture
26 Aug
Precis of what the Conservative childcare plan would pay out, and to whom by @AtkinsonCentre
Would reach 60% of families that file taxes with childcare expenses.
Average benefit: $1,300 (a year)
<300 families would get the max $6K tax credit.
(!)

mailchi.mp/utoronto/ontar…
/2
It appears to be modelled on the Ontario Tax Credit.
FAO says that costs $475M in 2021-22, $460 on average ongoing. fao-on.org/en/Blog/Public…
Ontario has 38% of the kids, so nationally approximately $1.2B a year.
The Liberals promised $30B over 5.
This would be ~$6B over 5.
/3
The FAO also makes clear that most of that $6B would be going to better off families: 2/3rds to top half of families ($63.7K or more), and only 3% to families in the bottom quarter ($21,4K or less)
Mistake in first tweet: the <300 families getting full $6K is for Ontario.
/4
Read 6 tweets
Armine Yalnizyan Profile picture
16 Aug
@AbigailBimman Up to $6K for *families* with incomes under $30K
Also you can work while on maternity leave without getting whacked up to $1K a month, $250 a week! Yay?
More paragraphs on how you'll get time off if your child dies or you suffer a stillbirth/miscarriage than info on childcare.
@AbigailBimman Note: if Ontario (largest labour market) had signed a deal with the feds, the pledge to drop parent costs by 50% in 18 mths, $10/day average in 5 yrs would mean parents would save much more $.
For infant care in Toronto ($1685/mth) difference at 50% is $4k/yr more with Lib plan!
@AbigailBimman The two biggest voting blocs, ON and QC would be worse off.
1. QC doesn't have a cost problem, so the refundable tax credit, even for the poorest families, wouldn't offer much "cash for care" help. It has a "not enough good care" problem, but this platform doesn't address need.
Read 14 tweets
Armine Yalnizyan Profile picture
16 Aug
Really superb.

Unemployment is 5.4% in the U.S.
could fall to 4% by year’s end.

#HumbleFed’s @neelkashkari has seriously thoughtful answers to main Q:
What definition of full employment is relevant in the early 21st century for monopol?

/2
One (of many) interesting issues: official UR (unemployment rate) is an average of many average unemployment rates of different demographic groups. One way to be sure labour market slack is falling is by seeing falling inequality between, say, Black and "official" UR.

/3
UR isn't the only/best indicator of labour market slack.
(Jesse Jackson, I think, used to say "There was full employment under slavery too.")
Quality of work is important.
So are LF participation rates. (UR drops if more people drop out of the labour force. #shecession)

/4
Read 8 tweets
Armine Yalnizyan Profile picture
14 Aug
About a month ago I started thinking about time, its role in recovery, and in our lives.

futureofworkers.substack.com/p/time-is-money
Soon after, @anima_tk invited me to have a deeper dive with her on the 4-day work week, a trendy policy idea emerging from pandemic pressures.
I don't think so. Here's why. And what I think will *have* to happen re shorter work time. #FutureOfWorkers theglobeandmail.com/podcasts/the-d…
But the reason I'm writing this thread is that staycation has permitted the time to listen to/read some weird and wonderful ideas (and play in the garden, which provides a type of surprise/joy I don't get from anything else 👇🏽).

So I want to tell you about ... ImageImageImage
Read 4 tweets
Armine Yalnizyan Profile picture
10 Mar
Have been crunching numbers on the relative size of the #CareEconomy in Canada, re paid work and contribution to GDP.
First, definition: health services (includes eldercare, home care, long-term care, social assistance) and education services (from childcare through PSE).

/2
Why include education services? Because it develops the potential of our youngest citizens, labour market entrants, and those with jobs or displaced from jobs.
/3
Pre-pandemic (2019) the Care Economy's % of GDP: 12.3% [health 7%, educ 5.3%]. Was 12.25% in 2020.

cf
Real estate: 12.7% (13.7% in 2020)
Manufacturing: 10% (9.5% in 2020)
Construction: 7.2% (7.3%)
Finance/Insurance: 6.9% (7.6%)
Oil and Gas: 5.6% (5.6%)
Retail: 5% (5.2%)

/4
Read 8 tweets

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