The Alberta government released their March 2020 job numbers yesterday, and—unsurprisingly—they don’t look good.
Last month, Alberta lost over 117,000 jobs: 73,600 part-time jobs and 43,500 full-time jobs.
Recession is defined by sustained periods of reduced economic activity. Economic activity is primarily driven by consumer spending, so reduced economic activity means consumers are spending less.
Capitalists insist that making sure companies have profits is what drive the economy. Here’s why that’s a myth.
Service Canada received nearly 1 million applications last week for employment insurance, which is 33 times more than the same week in 2019. I haven’t seen the numbers broken down for Alberta, but given that Alberta has 12% of Canada’s population, there’s a good chance that a significant number of those applications came from Alberta.
If there’s one thing that’s become clear during the COVID-19 pandemic, it’s that neoliberal economic policies have failed our societies.
Workers are too often tasked with bearing the burden of generating profit for their employer.
In September 2019, the Government of Alberta established a Supervised Consumption Sites Review Committee. The government gave the committee a mandate to study the socio-economic impact of supervised consumption sites in the communities where they were located. The government specifically prevented them from simultaneously reviewing the health care impacts of the sites.
Further to my recent posts on Lethbridge rent being unaffordable and Lethbridge workers being paid the lowest in Alberta, I decided to research property taxes in Lethbridge. What I discovered was that among all 18 Alberta cities, Lethbridge has the highest property taxes.
Last month, I wrote about rent affordability in Lethbridge. A lot of people agreed with the conclusions I drew from the data I presented: it confirmed their own lived experience.
Socialism built the modern world, not capitalism. Anyone who tells you that global poverty is dropping, and it’s because of capitalism doesn’t understand how the real world works.