Job numbers don’t speak to affordability fears, Scoffield, Oct. 16

Today’s unemployment rate of 5.5 per cent may be considered “rock bottom,” but unemployment after the Second World War until the mid-1950s averaged less than 3 per cent. However, the rise of neo-liberalism in the 1980s coincided with the normalization of higher unemployment rates. Fiscal and monetary settings that led to more jobless and new laws relating to minimum wages and labour standards, union organizing and strike rules, and import of foreign workers, all combined to reduce pressure on wages.

The link between higher productivity and concurrent wage gains was broken, and consequently more profits accrued to capital.

The suppression of wages had another benefit, since workers could be enticed to borrow in order to maintain lifestyles, leading to another source of increased profits for the financial industry. And indebted workers in a tepid economy are fearful of leaving their jobs since replacements may be hard to find.

Affordability worries today are by no means the result of the boom-bust nature of Canada’s economy or other factors beyond the control of politicians. On the contrary, the squeeze on working and middle class families was carefully engineered by Conservative and Liberal governments to benefit the economic elites which they represent.