This story is part of the 2013 Atkinson Series: Me, You, Us. Journalist and author Michael Valpy has done an investigation into social cohesion in Canada — what binds us together, what draws us apart.
Eric Schuppert’s realization that he had left the middle class did not occur in 2008, when his $75,000-a-year salary with full benefits, pension and five weeks’ paid vacation vanished along with his job as a public-service manager for the municipality of Caledon.
It did not occur when, at age 46, he had to borrow money from his parents to meet his monthly living costs. It did not occur when he was forced to sell his house in nearby Alliston.
It did not even occur when he found himself behind a counter at his local Tim Hortons — “Standing there in that crappy uniform with that dinky little hat on serving my friends coffee” — at the minimum wage of $10.25 an hour, taking direction from kids 20 years younger.
It occurred when the fear came to him that he would never be back to where he had been, that he was looking at a slammed-shut door to anything that resembled progress.
And with that fear, Schuppert, now 51 and working in Toronto as a night-shift college porter earning $30,000 a year, became part of a new phenomenon in Canada that social scientists haven’t previously encountered: he self-deselected from the middle class.
More..... http://www.thestar.com/news/atkinsonseries/2013/12/13/the_incredible_disappearing_middle_class.html
Stephen Harper and his sock puppets have shown little or no empathy toward the people of Canada and its economic difficulties. Their economic policy has been to finance industry while forcing workers to take lower wages to compete for work with temporary foreign workers.
His shameless abuse of the people goes relatively unnoticed by the majority as the attitude of most people is that it does not affect them...... YET! ...... rest assured it will .... we see it in our youth unemployment, in those who consider themselves self employed and in those who, although working, are forced to use the food banks to help feed their families.
The people living from pay cheque to pay cheque is increasing at record rates and it makes me wonder where we will be by 2020.
More..... http://www.thestar.com/news/atkinsonseries/2013/12/13/the_incredible_disappearing_middle_class.html
Stephen Harper and his sock puppets have shown little or no empathy toward the people of Canada and its economic difficulties. Their economic policy has been to finance industry while forcing workers to take lower wages to compete for work with temporary foreign workers.
His shameless abuse of the people goes relatively unnoticed by the majority as the attitude of most people is that it does not affect them...... YET! ...... rest assured it will .... we see it in our youth unemployment, in those who consider themselves self employed and in those who, although working, are forced to use the food banks to help feed their families.
The people living from pay cheque to pay cheque is increasing at record rates and it makes me wonder where we will be by 2020.
