May 13, 2016 – Anna Mehler Paperny, Global News
Nick has loaned people money with the same bills those customers used to repay their delinquent loans moments earlier.
‘They like having people in debt’: Your payday loan stories
Instability Trap
Alberta slashes payday loan fees to lowest in Canada
May 12, 2016 – Anna Mehler Paperny, Global News
Alberta is reducing the maximum amount payday lenders can charge to the lowest in Canada and requiring these companies to give borrowers more time to pay back the money they owe.
‘We are loan sharks’: Why this woman’s leaving the payday loan business
May 11, 2016 – Anna Mehler Paperny, Global News
You don’t ask people how much they want to borrow: You tell them how much you’re lending them.
Income immobility: Fewer Canadians are moving up – or down – the income ladder
May 8, 2016 – Anna Mehler Paperny, Global News
Canadians have less income mobility than they’ve had in decades as fewer people move up the income ladder — and even fewer move down.
Who benefits from Canada’s Universal Child Care Benefit?
July 13, 2015 – Anna Mehler Paperny, Global News
If you hand parents a cheque, will they work more?
Retirement lost: More Canadians are cashing out RRSPs early
February 23, 2015 – Anna Mehler Paperny, Global News
Lianne Paul had to empty her RRSP in September.
Not because she’s retiring – far from it: The mother of three is in her 40s. And a year after crippling health issues, including PTSD, forced her out of her job, she’s still unemployed. Openings for the same administrative work she’d been doing for years require skills that didn’t exist during her original diploma program.
Before she could qualify for income assistance to help her get by while she looks for a job, Paul had to liquidate all her savings – including the retirement nest egg to which she contributed for a decade.
‘Canadian families are tapped out’: Tories out of touch with economy, opposition says
February 19, 2015 – Anna Mehler Paperny, Global News
Canadians are struggling in today’s economy far more than the federal Conservatives realize, NDP and Liberal opposition critics say.
They point to analysis in a Global News series on Canada’s financial instability trapas proof the post-recession recovery is, for many families, an unfulfilled promise.
What the feds had to say about Canadians’ labour instability trap
February 18, 2015 – Anna Mehler Paperny, Global News
Global News asked to speak with newly minted Employment and Social Development Minister Pierre Poilievre to get his thoughts on our investigation into the labour and financial struggles plaguing Canadians.
He declined: “The Minister is in briefings all day for the next few days,” we were told last week.
So we sent questions via e-mail, instead, and received an e-mailed statement from his office in response.
Chequed out: Inside the payday loan cycle
Feb. 11, 2015 – Anna Mehler Paperny and Patrick Cain, Global News
Jillane Mignon just needed cash to pay for day care.
Her job with the City of Winnipeg’s 311 program covered the bills, but not the $1,000 a month it cost to care for her son while she was at work.
“When there are [child care] subsidies, there are no spaces. When there are spaces, there’s no subsidy.”
So it started with a small loan from a payday lender. That took care of that month.
Instability trap: Canadians want work. Why have so many stopped looking?
Feb. 10, 2015 – Anna Mehler Paperny, Global News
The percentage of working-age Canadians who aren’t working – who aren’t even looking for a job – is at a historic high years after the economy supposedly bounced back from the recession. The labour participation rate for Canadian men in their working prime – ages 25 through 54 – is the lowest it’s been since Statistics Canada started collecting that data.
a business of misfits 