Sask potash give -away !!!

[TSIPP]

I don’t have clue at how many jobs the potash industry produces but most of those people are probably paying a hundred grand in taxes every year, those jobs are a massive investment towards the economy, no potash and the economy will definitely notice.

[shtferbrains]

Can you see on this comparisons which provinces need to look at how they tax employers?

[farmaholic]

I don’t have clue at how many jobs the potash industry produces but most of those people are probably paying a hundred grand in taxes every year, those jobs are a massive investment towards the economy, no potash and the economy will definitely notice.

Didn't Nutrien team up with Sask Polytechnic to offer courses/certificates in the mining sector? There may be other mining companies doing the same thing with other learning institutions. There are probably some good opportunities for young people.

[TSIPP]

Lots of mechanics are making well over 200 grand, it’s the hard working ones that are getting paid well.

[chuckChuck]

GDP per capita is a flawed measure when the majority of the GDP is held by the top 5 %.

Per Capita GDP is a Deeply Flawed Measure of Economic Performance and Living Standards

By Jim Stanford



It is misleading to use per capita GDP to grade Canada’s overall economic performance or, as it often is used, as a proxy for measuring living standards.
Per capita GDP is a simple ratio of the total value of goods and services produced for money in an economy divided by that jurisdiction’s population.
The math sounds easy. But the methodology is complicated. Equating average output per person with the standard of living in a country is not credible.
Per capita GDP has a numerator (GDP) and a denominator (population). Canada’s numerator has not performed badly by international standards.
Real GDP growth over the past decade averaged close to two percent per year, despite a shallow recession in 2015 and a bigger downturn during the COVID-19 pandemic. That’s the second fastest among G7 economies, behind only the U.S.
It is the denominator, therefore, that explains Canada’s seemingly poor performance by this measure. GDP has grown but not as fast as the population.
Indeed, in recent years, Canada has had its fastest population growth ([url]https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/tv.action?pid=1710000501[/url]) since the 1950s. The population grew three percent in each of 2023 and 2024, almost entirely due to immigrants – two-thirds of whom were non-permanent arrivals (on temporary work or student visas).
The impact of rapid population growth on an arbitrary statistical ratio hardly proves a broader economic failure.
The link between immigration and GDP is indirect and felt with a time lag. Canada cannot expect the arrival of new Canadians to immediately boost GDP in the same proportion as the existing population for many reasons. It takes time to find work, gain skills and develop productivity.
Any surge in immigration will normally result in lower average per capita GDP, but that doesn’t mean Canada’s previous residents suddenly became poorer. It simply means that Canada is absorbing new people to lay the groundwork for future expansion. The resulting decline in per capita GDP cannot be interpreted as evidence of a more general malaise.
It is also worth noting that many of the business voices now bemoaning Canada’s per capita GDP performance were the same voices demanding more access to temporary foreign labour after COVID-19 (to solve purported labour shortages and reduce wage pressures).
It’s contradictory for them to now complain about poor GDP per capita resulting precisely from the temporary immigration they demanded.
GDP itself – the numerator of the ratio – encounters numerous conceptual and methodological questions, casting further doubt on its validity as a measure of living standards.
GDP includes many components that have no direct bearing on the quality of life, such as depreciation, real estate commissions and imputed rents on housing.
It is tricky to measure real GDP over time and even trickier to compare it across countries, different currencies and different prices.
Moreover, simple per capita averages ignore how GDP is distributed. Only about half of GDP is paid to workers. Much is captured in profits and investment income, disproportionately concentrated at the top of the income ladder.
Very high incomes for a rich elite can pull up average GDP per capita figures, even when most members of a society face hardship.

International comparisons reveal flaws of evaluating economic performance by GDP per capita

The top four countries on the International Monetary Fund’s per capita GDP ranking are all tax havens: Luxembourg, Switzerland, Ireland and Singapore.
A fifth, Liechtenstein, is not included due to incomplete data, but its GDP per capita (US$186,000) is the highest of all – helped by the fact its population is just 40,000.
These countries receive inflows of profits from global companies lured by low corporate taxes and lax banking rules. Those inflows boost GDP per capita (with profits credited to local subsidiaries of those global firms), but have little impact on work, production or living standards.
Ireland, for example, has recorded the fastest growth of real GDP per capita of any OECD country over the last decade and its GDP per capita is purportedly twice Canada’s.
Ireland is a wonderful, fascinating place. But any visitor can immediately confirm it is not rich. Average living standards (evidenced by wages, housing, health and poverty) are no higher and, by some measures lower, than Canada’s.
Because Ireland’s corporate tax rate is lower than other European Union countries, global multinationals have established Irish subsidiaries to receive intracorporate transfers. In 2023, more than half of all net value added ([url]https://waronwant.org/sites/default/files/Tax%20Justice%20Irelands%20Role%20in%20Internation[/url] al%20Context.pdf) in Ireland consisted of business profits – two thirds of which belonged to foreign firms.
GDP per capita has soared but living standards have not. Because the whole model is driven by corporate tax avoidance, the Irish government’s ability to capture some of that largesse for domestic use is constrained.

[chuckChuck]

There is a natural tendency to put a political spin on economic measurements. However, there is no correlation between which party is in power in Ottawa and the evolution of this ratio.

Canada’s per capita GDP relative to the U.S. rose during Pierre Elliott Trudeau’s first years in office but began to fall during his final term. It declined most steeply under Brian Mulroney, was stable during the terms of Jean Chrétien and Paul Martin, fell during the last years of Stephen Harper’s rule and then declined further under Justin Trudeau.

Canada-U.S. per capita GDP comparisons reflect a complex mix of many determinants, including economic growth, sectoral changes, population growth, immigration, inflation and exchange rates. It is far-fetched to conclude that any government deserves either credit or blame for its trajectory.

Canadians have a higher standard of living and well-being than Americans


Prosperity depends not just on how much is produced, but how it is distributed. Bank of Canada research shows most of the U.S. advantage in per capita GDP is concentrated among high-income earners.

Three-quarters of the gap in per capita output is captured by higher incomes for the top 10 percent of Americans. There is little difference in incomes between the bottom 90 percent in the two countries.

The richest 10 percent of Americans receive almost half ([url]https://wid.world/data/[/url]) of all pre-tax income, so their wealth significantly inflates the overall per capita average.

In fact, most Canadian workers earn higher wages than those in the U.S. It is most accurate to measure typical incomes by the median wage (the halfway point in a distribution), not the average (which can be distorted by very high incomes at the top).

The median hourly wage exchange rate.

The median hourly wage ([url]https://www.bls.gov/oes/2023/may/oes_nat.htm[/url]) in the U.S. in 2023 was US$23.11. The typical Canadian worker thus earned 6.5 percent more than their U.S. counterpart, despite lower per capita GDP.

Perhaps surprisingly, the Canadian worker also paid a lower marginal federal tax rate (20.5 percent ([url]https://www.taxtips.ca/priortaxrates/tax-rates-2022-2023/canada.htm[/url]) for full-time workers) than their U.S. counterpart (22 percent ([url]https://taxfoundation.org/data/all/federal/2023-tax-brackets/[/url])).

Of course, public services, not just private incomes, are also important to living standards. Canada’s more extensive health care, public education and other services enhance the quality of life in ways not captured by per capita GDP.

For example, eight percent of Americans have no health insurance ([url]https://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/surveys/2024/nov/state-health-insurance-coverage-us-2024-biennial-survey[/url]) and one-quarter are underinsured (facing out-of-pocket costs that force many to skip needed care). That takes much of the shine off a higher GDP.

For all these reasons, it is clear the typical Canadian has a higher standard of living than the typical American. We are healthier ([url]https://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/fund-reports/2024/sep/mirror-mirror-2024[/url]), live three years longer ([url]https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/field/life-expectancy-at-birth/country-comparison/[/url]), face much less inequality ([url]https://ourworldindata.org/economic-inequality[/url]) and are happier ([url]https://data.worldhappiness.report/table[/url]).

[chuckChuck]

Canadians have a higher standard of living and well-being than Americans


Prosperity depends not just on how much is produced, but how it is distributed. Bank of Canada research shows most of the U.S. advantage in per capita GDP is concentrated among high-income earners.

Three-quarters of the gap in per capita output is captured by higher incomes for the top 10 percent of Americans. There is little difference in incomes between the bottom 90 percent in the two countries.

The richest 10 percent of Americans receive almost half ([url]https://wid.world/data/[/url]) of all pre-tax income, so their wealth significantly inflates the overall per capita average.

In fact, most Canadian workers earn higher wages than those in the U.S. It is most accurate to measure typical incomes by the median wage (the halfway point in a distribution), not the average (which can be distorted by very high incomes at the top).

The median hourly wage exchange rate.

The median hourly wage ([url]https://www.bls.gov/oes/2023/may/oes_nat.htm[/url]) in the U.S. in 2023 was US$23.11. The typical Canadian worker thus earned 6.5 percent more than their U.S. counterpart, despite lower per capita GDP.

Perhaps surprisingly, the Canadian worker also paid a lower marginal federal tax rate (20.5 percent ([url]https://www.taxtips.ca/priortaxrates/tax-rates-2022-2023/canada.htm[/url]) for full-time workers) than their U.S. counterpart (22 percent ([url]https://taxfoundation.org/data/all/federal/2023-tax-brackets/[/url])).

Of course, public services, not just private incomes, are also important to living standards. Canada’s more extensive health care, public education and other services enhance the quality of life in ways not captured by per capita GDP.

[fjlip]

God Bless Socialism!

[chuckChuck]

Well at least you now know why per capita GDP measure is so flawed!

But you still think the billionaires getting most of the wealth is a good idea? LOL



"Prosperity depends not just on how much is produced, but how it is distributed. Bank of Canada research shows most of the U.S. advantage in per capita GDP is concentrated among high-income earners.

Three-quarters of the gap in per capita output is captured by higher incomes for the top 10 percent of Americans. There is little difference in incomes between the bottom 90 percent in the two countries.

The richest 10 percent of Americans receive almost half ([url]https://wid.world/data/[/url]) of all pre-tax income, so their wealth significantly inflates the overall per capita average.

In fact, most Canadian workers earn higher wages than those in the U.S. It is most accurate to measure typical incomes by the median wage (the halfway point in a distribution), not the average (which can be distorted by very high incomes at the top)."

[shtferbrains]

Sorry Chuck, wasn't up to your 3 pgs of socialist reasons why it isn't important if your government kills the economy, because they will redistribute your money better than you can.

But I notice your renewable star North Dakota has much higher incomes that their neghbours right across the border to the north.
Even with the windmills, it would seem we have a huge advantage on natural resources?
Why do you think ND is at such an enviable position for personal income?