New OECD Comparisons
"This is totally contrary to the kind of nonsense we hear from some of our business people in Canada and some of our media. 23rd of 34 OECD countries in terms of social spending!"
The following is from the new OECD publication , Society at a Glance 2011, which is the OECD annual publication of leading social indicators.
This is a reminder that there are now 34 countries in the OECD. Looking at median income in OECD countries, Canada is now in 7th place.
Bear in mind that many of the figures that follow are from 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2010. But they are the most recent equivalent numbers because some of countries don't come out with their figures that frequently.
Looking at household incomes, the incomes for Canadians put us way down in the last quarter of all the countries placing us well below many others. However, if we look at annual median disposable household income, Canada, in 2008 was in 7th place, behind countries such as Luxembourg, the United States, Norway, Australia and Switzerland.
On a totally different topic, looking at fertility rates in OECD countries, Canada is now in 17th place slightly below the OECD average.
Again, on a totally different topic, if we want to see what percentage of Canada's population is foreign born, we are in 6th place at roughly 16.7% – well above the OECD average of 11.7%.
Is Canada's population aging as we so often hear? The latest figures are for 2008 and show that in relation to the OECD average, we are aging at a pretty quick rate but so are many other OECD countries including the United States, Israel, etc. etc. In fact, we are in 13th place in terms of aging whereas there are 19 other OECD countries that are not aging as rapidly as Canada.
Looking at the employment rate for 2009, Canada is in 10th position. Employment was just under 71% whereas the OECD average was just over 66%.
However looking at the unemployment rate in 2009 – the most recent year available – Canada was way down in 21st place in terms of our unemployment rate, and this is well behind many other countries and well above the OECD average.
In terms of our per capita education spending on compulsory school public and private, Canada was down in 15th place but nevertheless above the OECD average.
Returning to the subject to income inequality where we had been so bad for so many years – Canada is down in 22nd place in terms of income inequality and we're worse than most other major developed countries although the US is much worse than we are.
Looking at poverty, Canada is 21st in the percentage of people living in poverty – 21st in 34 OECD nations. This is disgraceful!
In terms of people finding it very difficult to live on the current level of income (2010), Canada is down in 16th place – in other words there are 15 other OECD countries that are better off than we are.
Now returning to the topic of social spending, something I've emphasized in the past, incredibly, we are down in 23rd place of OECD countries, well below the OECD average, another embarrassment. This is totally contrary to the kind of nonsense we hear from some of our business people in Canada and some of our media. 23rd of 34 OECD countries in terms of social spending!
Canada is now down in 10th place in life expectancy (the US is in 27th!)
© Copyright, Mel Hurtig's Blog, 2012
