Here is a piece I wrote for today’s Globe Economy Lab re the Department of Finance report on the costs of an aging society.
The key point is that the mainstream doom and gloom projections of the costs of falling labour force growth ignore the positive impacts which can be expected as and when we get to a situation of tight labour markets. If we actually get to a low unemployment rate because of fewer labour force new entrants, participation rates of older age groups will rise and we can confidently expect labour productivity growth to increase. Sure, there will be additional social program costs as the population ages, but demographic gloom and doom is overdone by the Harper government to justify cuts today to deal with exaggerated fiscal problems tomorrow.
In a somewhat similar vein, my earlier post for Economy Lab argues that the issue of inequality between generations is over-stated and, more specifically, that differences between the economic well-being of young people today and their baby boomer parents are greatly overdone.
Now that I have retired from the CLC, I shall be blogging for the Broadbent Institute on a regular basis, but will continue to post here on an occasional basis.
I commend to your attention the just-released Institute paper, "Towards a More Equal Canada", and the many commentaries which will be posted to the website over the coming weeks.
Andrew Jackson is Senior Policy Adviser with the Broadbent Institute and the Packer Professor of Social Justice at York University.
