Canadian Social Research Newsletter
April 9, 2006

Welcome to the weekly Canadian Social Research Newsletter,
a listing of the new links added to the Canadian Social Research Links website in the past week.

The e-mail version of this week's issue of the newsletter is going out to 1586 subscribers.
Scroll to the bottom of this newsletter to see some notes and a disclaimer.

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IN THIS ISSUE:

Canadian Content

1. Speech from the Throne (Government of Canada) - April 6
2. 2006-07 Saskatchewan Budget - April 6, 2006
3. What's New from Statistics Canada:
--- Labour Force Survey, March 2006 - April 7
--- Low-income Cutoffs for 2005 and Low-income Measures for 2004 - April 6
--- Low Wage and Low Income - April 6
--- Study: The dynamics of overqualification, 1993 to 2001 - April 6
--- Child care: An eight-year profile, 1994-1995 to 2002-2003 - April 5
--- Study: The impact of human capital on provincial standards of living - April 5
4. New Canadian Social Research Links Page: Poverty Measures - International Resources
5. DiversityWorks.ca - diversity in the workplace
6. PovNet website - April 2006 update
7. Ministry of Employment and Income Assistance Online Resource (Government of British Columbia) - March 27
8. British Columbia Employment and Assistance [welfare] Act amended (Ministry of Employment and Income Assistance) - April 3
9. Toying with Child Care (The Ottawa Citizen) - April 2
10. What's New from the Childcare Resource and Research Unit (University of Toronto) - April 7

International  Content

11. Poverty Dispatch Digest : U.S. media coverage of social issues and programs --- April 6
12. New U.S. Census Measures Undercount Poverty (Economic Policy Institute and Center on Budget and Policy Priorities) - March 29

Have a great  week!

The Speech from the Throne
April 4, 2006
"(...) Parents must be able to choose the child care that is best for them. The Government will help Canadian parents, as they seek to balance work and family life, by supporting their child care choices through direct financial support." [Excerpt from "Providing Child Care Choice and Support"]
Source:
Government of Canada
Office of the Prime Minister of Canada

Related Links:

Choice in Child Care Allowance
- from the website of the Conservative Party of Canada

Google.ca News Search Results:
"Speech from the Throne, Canada, 2006"
Google.ca Web Search Results:
"Speech from the Throne, Canada, 2006"
Source:
Google.ca

- Go to the General Federal Government Links page: http://www.canadiansocialresearch.net/fed2.htm

2006-07 Saskatchewan Budget
April 6, 2006
- includes links to all Budget papers

News Release:
New Provincial Budget works to ensure Saskatchewan is the best place to live, work and raise a family
Tax cuts for business, more training opportunities for young people, a freeze on tuition fees and support for vulnerable citizens -- those are some of the highlights delivered by Finance Minister Andrew Thomson in Saskatchewan's 13th consecutive balanced budget.

Google.ca News Search Results:
"Saskatchewan Budget 2006-2007"
Google.ca Web Search Results:
"Saskatchewan Budget 2006-2007"
Source:
Google.ca

NOTE: all governments except Nova Scotia and the federal govt. have now tabled their 2006-2007 budgets.

- Go to the Canadian Government Budgets Links page: http://www.canadiansocialresearch.net/budgets.htm
- Go to the Saskatchewan Links page: http://www.canadiansocialresearch.net/skbkmrk.htm

What's New from The Daily [Statistics Canada]:

April 7, 2006
Labour Force Survey, March 2006
Employment increased by 51,000 in March, bringing total gains from 12 months ago to 330,000 or 2.1%. The unemployment rate declined 0.1 percentage points to 6.3%, a 32-year low.

April 6, 2006
Low-income Cutoffs for 2005 and Low-income Measures for 2004
Low-income cutoffs (LICOs) for 2005 and low-income measures (LIMs) for 2004, before and after tax, are now available. The updated thresholds for both measurements are contained in a single publication, Low-income Cutoffs for 2005 and Low-income Measures for 2004. The publication incorporates a detailed description of the methods used to arrive at both measurements. It also explains how base years are defined and how LICOs are updated using the Consumer Price Index.

Complete report:

Low-income Cutoffs for 2005 and Low-income Measures for 2004 (PDF file - 446K, 37 pages)
April 2006

April 6, 2006
Study: Low wage and low income, 1993 to 2004
Fewer Canadians slipped into low income in 2004, while more were able to climb out, according to a new study that analyzes the economic well-being of Canadians exposed to low income and low wages. Using new income data for 2004, the study showed that only 3.3% of Canadians who were not living below Statistics Canada's low-income cutoff (LICO) in 2003 had slipped into low income in 2004.

Low Wage and Low Income (PDF file - 368K, 12 pages)
April 2006
by Income Statistics Division
This report examines the transitions into and out of low income and the persistence of low income among Canadians. It also examines the incidence of low wage among full-time workers and the extent to which low wage workers live in low income families.

Related reports:

Income research paper series - links to 150+ studies going back to 1993

April 6, 2006
Study: The dynamics of overqualification, 1993 to 2001
About one out of every five people in the work force who had a university education was overqualified for their job at some point during 2001, according to a new study. That is, they had worked in a job that required at most high school education. This study, which examines the phenomenon of overqualification, used data from Statistics Canada's Survey of Labour and Income Dynamics (SLID) to profile individuals who were most susceptible.

Complete report:

The Dynamics of Overqualification:
Canada’s Underemployed University (127K, 18 pages)
by Chris Li, Ginette Gervais and Aurélie Duval

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April 5, 2006
Child care: An eight-year profile, 1994-1995 to 2002-2003
Over the past eight years, the proportion of children in child care has increased significantly. This increase has been accompanied by shifts in the use of different types of care arrangements, according to a new report.

Complete report:

Child Care in Canada (PDF file - 714K, 99 pages)
April 2006
by Tracey Bushnik

More StatCan reports on child care

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April 5, 2006
Study: The impact of human capital on provincial standards of living, 1951 to 2001
The accumulation of human capital has played a strong role in explaining relative levels of per capita income across the provinces during the past half century, according to a new report. This report examines the role of human capital as measured by two concepts (the accumulation of literacy skills and university achievement) to explain the relative levels of income per capita in the provinces between 1951 and 2001.

Complete report:

International Adult Literacy Survey:
Human Capital and Canadian Provincial Standards of Living (PDF file - 334K, 44 pages)
April 2006
Serge Coulombe and Jean-François Tremblay

- Go to the Government Early Learning and Child Care Links page: http://www.canadiansocialresearch.net/ecd.htm
- Go to the Poverty Measures Links page: http://www.canadiansocialresearch.net/poverty.htm

New Canadian Social Research Links Page:
Poverty Measures - International Resources

The size of the Canadian Social Research Links Poverty Measures page was becoming far too large for site visitors using a dialup connection, so I've split it into two pages, one Canadian and one for American and other international resources. The "new" International page also includes the following links that I've just added:
- a joint report (March 28) from the Economic Policy Institute and the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities claiming that new measures at the U.S. Census Bureau are now undercounting poverty in America
- an April 2002 report on measuring poverty by the Employment Policies Institute arguing against the use of basic needs budgets as measures of income inadequacy in the U.S. [...BUT the Institute is a tool for a well-known Washington restaurant industry lobbyist]
- an August 1995 paper by U.S. government guru on poverty measures, Gordon M. Fisher, presenting an extensive body of evidence from the U.S., Britain, Canada and Australia, showing that successive poverty lines developed as absolute poverty lines show a pattern of getting higher in real terms as the real income of the general population rises (a phenomenon termed "the income elasticity of the poverty line").

- Go to the Poverty Measures - Canadian Resources page: http://www.canadiansocialresearch.net/poverty.htm
- Go to the Poverty Measures - International Resources page: http://www.canadiansocialresearch.net/poverty2.htm

DiversityWorks - Canada’s first and only multimedia publication devoted to diversity in the workplace
With DiversityWorks, we educate, analyze and inform on a subject that has become increasingly prevalent over the past few years. Our publication ($26.85/yr.) explores the business of gender, nationality, experience, age and disability. DiversityWorks.ca offers links to diversity news and a series of resources: links, event listings and articles on the subject of workplace diversity.

- Go to the Media Links page: http://www.canadiansocialresearch.net/mediabkmrk.htm

PovNet website's April 2006 update includes:

* Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives report "Denied Assistance: Closing the Front Door on Welfare in BC"
* Dismantling the poverty trap in Saint John, NB
* Stats Can report on family and low income
* BC Ombudsman investigates complaints regarding the welfare ministry
* The pandemic and poverty
* Educational Upgrading and Its Consequences Among Welfare Recipients
* Poverty and social exclusion in Montreal
* Stories about housing and homelessness from BC, Alberta, Ontario and internationally
* The National Anti Poverty Organization and the UN's International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights
* WorkRights - a website to access the latest information on labour codes in your province or territory
* much more..
Source:
PovNet
"PovNet is for advocates, people on welfare, and community groups and individuals involved in anti-poverty work. It provides up-to-date information about welfare and housing laws and resources in British Columbia, Canada. PovNet links to current anti-poverty issues and also provides links to other anti-poverty organizations and resources in Canada and internationally."
- incl. links to : News - Issues - Advocacy - Find an Advocate - Regional - About us - Links

Links : excellent, large collection

- Go to the Non-Governmental Sites in British Columbia (C-W) page: http://www.canadiansocialresearch.net/bcbkmrk3.htm

Ministry of Employment and Income Assistance
Online Resource - British Columbia
"Effective March 27, 2006 the BCEA (welfare) Manual has been retired and replaced with an exciting* new information source – the Online Resource. The Online Resource incorporates information from a number of different sources into one user-friendly website, which will save time spent searching for up-to-date information and resources."

*"Exciting" isn't the first word that pops into most people's heads when they hear the expression "welfare information", but I, for one, found the old BC welfare manual more "exciting" because I could actually "find information" in there. The new manual has no hyperlinked table of contents - in fact, you have to open a PDF file to see the table of contents. And someone should tell the web design team that the plus sign to the left of a directory item (e.g., on the front page) is usually a simple piece of javascript that opens sub-directories, not just a graphic used in lieu of a bullet or a dash in front of each item in a list...

"Retired" BC Employment and Assistance Manual (Oct. 2004) - from The Internet Archive
NOTE: Do spend some time exploring The Internet Archive --- you'll find it has not only obscure Canadian provincial welfare policy manuals, but also large collections of links to events, people and places...

- Go to the Provincial/Territorial Welfare Policy Manuals page: http://www.canadiansocialresearch.net/manuals.htm
- Go to the Key Provincial/Territorial Welfare Links page: http://www.canadiansocialresearch.net/welfare.htm

Changes Modernize BC Employment and Assistance Act
News Release
April 3, 2006
"VICTORIA – Amendments to the B.C. Employment and Assistance Act and the Employment and Assistance for Persons with Disabilities Act – introduced today in the B.C. legislature – modernize eligibility criteria, obligations for income assistance clients, and conditions for sharing information. 'These amendments reflect our commitment to provide British Columbians with an income assistance system that is fair, caring and sustainable,' said Claude Richmond, Minister of Employment and Income Assistance. 'They will increase our ability to better serve our clients while at the same time strengthening and protecting the integrity of the British Columbia Employment and Assistance program.'

The amendments affect three areas of the legislation:
· definitions of dependant and spouse;
· sanctions for inaccurate reporting of circumstances; and,
· information-sharing agreements.
Source:
Ministry of Employment and Income Assistance

Toying with child care
April 2, 2006
"To judge from the debate, there are just two versions of baby raising from which to choose: 1. The stay-at-home model. (A classic for generations!) 2. The day-care package. (Limited warranty, assembly required.) Yet as Louisa Taylor reveals, the divisive rhetoric and campaign bluster obscure a fundamental question: How do we want to raise the next generation of Canadians?"
More (this is a seven-page article - click on "next" in bottom right-hand corner of each page)
Source:
The Ottawa Citizen

- Go to the Non-Governmental Early Learning and Child Care Links page: http://www.canadiansocialresearch.net/ecd2.htm

What's New - from the Childcare Resource and Research Unit (CRRU) - University of Toronto

Each week, the Childcare Resource and Research Unit disseminates its "e-mail news notifier", an e-mail message with a dozen or so links to new reports, studies and child care in the news (media articles) by the CRRU or another organization in the field of early childhood education and care (ECEC). What you see below is content from the most recent issue of the notifier.

7-Apr-06

NOTE: Because of the prominence of the child care issue in the new Canadian Parliament, CRRU has expanded its weekly e-mail news notifier to include links to the child care sections of the House of Commons Hansards.
Here's where you can find all recent Hansard excerpts concerning child care in Canada:
Hansard Excerpts

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What's New
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>> Child care in Canada
by Bushnik, Tracey
Report from Statistics Canada "provides an overview of child care in Canada" over an eight-year period from 1994-1995 to 2002-2003.

>> Child care quality in Australia
by Rush, Emma
Study from the Australia Institute finds 21% of staff in the corporate chains would not send their own children to that centre due to concerns over quality, compared with 4% of non-profit centre staff.

>> The Community Child Care Investment Program: Does the evidence support the claims?
Paper from the Child Care Advocacy Association of Canada shows that "workplace child care is not 'the answer' for early learning and child care; it is - at best - a small part of the solution."

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Child Care in the News
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>> It's mostly middle-class convenience [CA]
by Wente, Margaret / Globe and Mail, 6 Apr 06

The daycare debate (letters in reponse to above article) [CA]

>> Harper killing key chance for kids; Childhood development big benefit, experts say [CA]
by Crane, David / Toronto Star, 7 Apr 06

>> Child care remedy remains in question [CA]
by Youds, Mike / Daily News (Kamloops), 5 Apr 06

>> Day care fight not over; Battle for national program to continue [CA]
by Green, Sarah / Ottawa Sun, 5 Apr 06

>> Few signs of child-care compromise as Conservatives set government course [CA]
by Bailey, Sue / Canadian Press, 4 Apr 06

>> Continue Liberal plans for child care: Fort Town [CA-ON]
Brockville Recorder & Times, 4 Apr 06

>> Tipping the cradle [CA]
by Jaimet, Kate / Ottawa Citizen, 2 Apr 06

>> Toying with child care [CA]
by Taylor, Louisa / Ottawa Citizen, 2 Apr 06

>> Child care chains damned - by insiders [AU]
by Horin, Adele / Sydney Morning Herald, 1 Apr 06

>> Premier too quiet on child-care deal: critics [CA-NL]
CBC News- Newfoundland, 30 Mar 06

>> Child-care groups fume over allegations [CA]
De Souza, Mike / Regina Leader-Post, 6 Apr 05

New Issue File:

2006 Speech from the Throne and ELCC
On April 4, 2006, Her Excellency the Governor General opened the First Session of the 39th Parliament with a Speech from the Throne in the Senate Chamber. This Issue File collects: useful resources to analyze the Throne Speech; responses from groups and political parties; and news articles.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
This message was forwarded through the Childcare Resource
and Research Unit e-mail news notifier. For information on the
CRRU e-mail notifier, including instructions for (un)subscribing,
see http://www.childcarecanada.org
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Related Links:

What's New? - Canadian, U.S. and international resources
Child Care in the News - media articles
ISSUE files - theme pages, each filled with contextual information and links to further info
Links to child care sites in Canada and elsewhere
CRRU Publications - briefing notes, factsheets, occasional papers and other publications

- Go to the Non-Governmental Early Learning and Child Care Links page: http://www.canadiansocialresearch.net/ecd2.htm

POVERTY DISPATCH Digest
Institute for Research on Poverty - U. of Wisconsin
This digest offers dozens of new links each week to full-text articles in the U.S. media (mostly daily newspapers) on poverty, poverty, welfare reform, child welfare, education, health, hunger, Medicare and Medicaid, and much more...
The Institute for Research on Poverty (IRP) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison offers a free e-mail service that consists of an e-mail message sent to subscribers each Monday and Thursday, containing a dozen or so links to articles dealing with the areas mentioned above. The weekly Canadian Social Research Links Poverty Dispatch Digest is a compilation, available online, of the two dispatch e-mails for that week --- with the kind permission of IRP.

Here's the complete collection of U.S. media articles in this week's Poverty Dispatch Digest:
(click the link above to read all of these articles)

April 6, 2006
Today's subjects include: Health Care Reform // Immigration Reform // Antipoverty Effort – Opinion // No Child Left Behind Act // School Vouchers // Assessing Public High Schools – Commentary // Welfare Caseload – New York // Welfare Sanctions – Washington // Health Care Plan – Massachusetts // Immigrant Health Care Cuts – Maryland // Child Care Subsidies – Wisconsin, Canada // Early Childhood Education – California // Child Obesity in Low-Income Families – New York // Homelessness – Los Angeles

April 3, 2006
Today's subjects include: American View of Poverty after Hurricane Katrina // Mayors' Proposals to Combat Poverty // Racial Wealth Gap // Closing the Digital Divide // Proposal to Eliminate SIPP // Plight of Young Black Men - Editorial // Ending Child Poverty - Opinion // Child Well-Being - Rhode Island, Montana // Teen Pregnancy and Prenatal Care - New Mexico // Drop in CHIP Enrollment - Texas // Medicaid Cuts - Missouri // Medicaid Reform - Idaho // Immigrants and Social Programs - California // Minimum Wage - California // "Mobile Homelessness" - Virginia // Homeless Families - Portland, OR // Homelessness - Hawaii

Each of the weekly digests offers dozens of links or more to media articles that are time-sensitive.
The older the link, the more likely it is to either be dead or have moved to an archive - and some archives [but not all] are pay-as-you-go.
[For the current week's digest, click on the POVERTY DISPATCH Digest link above]

Subscribe to the Poverty Dispatch!
Send an e-mail message to John Wolf [ jwolf@ssc.wisc.edu ] to receive a plain text message twice a week with one to two dozen links to media articles with a focus on poverty, welfare reform, child welfare, health, Medicaid from across the U.S.
And it's free...

Source:
Institute for Research on Poverty (IRP)
[ University of Wisconsin-Madison ]

For the current week's digest, click on the POVERTY DISPATCH Digest link at the top of this section.
Recently-archived POVERTY DISPATCH weekly digests:

- March 23, 2006
- March 16
- March 9
- March 2
- February 23

POVERTY DISPATCH description/archive - weekly issues back to August 2005, 50+ links per issue
NOTE: this archive is part of the Canadian Social Research Links American Non-Governmental Social Research page.

- Go to the Links to American Government Social Research page: http://www.canadiansocialresearch.net/us.htm
- Go to the Links to American Non-Governmental Social Research (A-J) page: http://www.canadiansocialresearch.net/us2.htm
- Go to the Links to American Non-Governmental Social Research (M-Z) page: http://www.canadiansocialresearch.net/us3.htm

New Census Measures Undercount Poverty
Newsflash
March 29, 2006
The Census Bureau recently unveiled new alternative poverty measures intended to provide a more complete measure of economic well-being. But flaws in the new measures cause them to understate the pervasiveness of poverty among American families, according to a new report authored by EPI senior economist Jared Bernstein and CBPP senior researcher Arloc Sherman. The report by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) and the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) explores in detail how the Census Bureau devised its new measures and points out their weaknesses. For example, the new measures depart from past Census Bureau practice of accounting for child-care expenses as part of working families' work expenses. And they treat home ownership as an income source for poor families in a manner contrary to the advice of top experts and past Census Bureau reports.March 28, 2006

Complete report:

POOR MEASUREMENT:
New Census Report on Measuring Poverty Raises Concerns (PDF file - 230K, 7 pages)
March 28, 2006
"...The Census Bureau says its new report is meant to provide 'a more complete measure of economic well-being,' but the report ignores issues such as child care and medical expenses that Census staff, with help from outside experts, included in many past estimates of poverty under a comprehensive, revised poverty standard. (..) It would be of particular concern if the Census Bureau plans to continue publicizing only those poverty rates that are much lower than the current rate, and providing no indication that the lower rates are derived from poverty measures that are controversial in the research community and that many researchers regard as flawed." [Conclusion]
Source:
Economic Policy Institute (EPI)
Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP)

Related Link from the U.S. Census Bureau:

The Effects of Government Taxes
and Transfers on Income and Poverty: 2004 (PDF file - 1MB, 22 pages)
"In August 2005, the Census Bureau released its annual report on income, poverty, and health insurance coverage in the United States. The income and poverty figures in that report were based on money income alone and did not include the effect of important public programs such as the Earned Income Tax Credit and noncash assistance such as food stamps and public or subsidized housing programs. As in previous years, the Census Bureau is now releasing a study that includes the effect of these and other government programs on economic summary measures, such as median household income, the Gini Index of income inequality, and the percentage of people below the poverty level. " [Introduction]

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NOTE: The Canadian Social Research Links page of Canadian and international resources on poverty measures was exceeding 200K in size, so out of sympathy for the folks who are visiting this site with a dialup connection I've split the page into Canadian/International sections - links to both new pages appear below.
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- Go to the Poverty Measures - Canadian Resources page: http://www.canadiansocialresearch.net/poverty.htm
- Go to the Poverty Measures - International Resources page: http://www.canadiansocialresearch.net/poverty2.htm

Disclaimer/Privacy Statement

Both Canadian Social Research Links (the site) and this Canadian Social Research Newsletter belong solely to me, Gilles Séguin.

I am solely accountable for the choice of links presented therein and for the occasional editorial comment - it's my time, my home computer, my experience, my biases, my Rogers Internet account and my web hosting service.

I administer the mailing list and distribute the weekly newsletter using software on the web server of the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE).
Thanks, CUPE!

If you wish to subscribe to the e-mail version of newsletter, go to the Canadian Social Research Newsletter Online Subscription page:
http://lists.cupe.ca/mailman/listinfo/csrl-news

You can unsubscribe by going to the same page or by sending me an e-mail message [ gilseg@rogers.com ]

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The e-mail version of this newsletter is available only in plain text (no graphics, no hyperlinks, no fancy bolding or italics, etc.) to avoid security problems with government departments, universities and other networks with firewalls. The text-only version is also friendlier for people using older or lower-end technology.

Privacy Policy:
The Canadian Social Research Newsletter mailing list is not used for any purpose except to distribute each weekly issue.
I promise not share any information on this list, nor to send you any junk mail.

Links presented in the Canadian Social Research Newsletter point to different views about social policy and social programs.
There are some that I don't agree with, so don't get on my case, eh...

To access earlier online HTML issues of the Canadian Social Research Newsletter, go to the Newsletter page:
http://www.canadiansocialresearch.net/news.htm

Please feel free to distribute this newsletter as widely as you wish, but please remember to mention Canadian Social Research Links when you do.

Cheers!
Gilles

E-MAIL:
gilseg@rogers.com