working poor

Poor prospects: Toronto’s impoverished are working hard and hardly earning

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Armira Varga moved to Canada from Colombia 23 years ago, built a life for herself and her kids. Now, out of a job and juggling multiple new gigs, she's joined the growing ranks of Toronto's working poor.
(Photo by Moe Doiron / The Globe and Mail)

They’re often single and not originally from Canada. They work close to full-time hours but likely bring home less than $20,000 a year. In the first Canadian study of its kind, the growth of Toronto’s working-poor population has been charted, and the results are shocking: Even during times of economic prosperity the number of working people unable to make ends meets grew by 42 per cent in the GTA, a figure that shows no sign of stopping. Anna Mehler Paperny reports

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A different kind of stimulus package: How ending poverty can save the economy

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Photo by Chris Bolin for the Globe and Mail

ANNA MEHLER PAPERNY AND TAVIA GRANT
Friday, May 06, 2011 – Globe and Mail

Behind corridors lined with contemporary Canadian art, sitting at a dark wooden table in his downtown Toronto office, Ed Clark offers some economic advice that might not typically come from Bay Street.

Give the poor a tax break.

“I say, ‘Why don’t you cut the taxes of the most overtaxed people?’ It isn’t Ed Clark,” the Toronto-Dominion Bank CEO said in an interview earlier this year. “It’s the people at the low end, because they face the highest marginal tax rates.”

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