Thoughts on Affordability
Affordability is a two-sided coin. On one side: How much you’re paid. On the other side: What things cost. While both sides matter, what really matters is what’s between the sides – the thickness of the coin itself.
Good Jobs
The first side to affordability is having enough money to buy what you need. This requires access to highly skilled and productive employment or access to other means of economic security, such as employment insurance, disability wages, a good pension, or income assistance.
Good paying jobs pay family wages and make needed essentials affordable. Good jobs include security, which allows you to make long-term economic decisons, and are provided by employers who treat their workers with respect. These jobs support a broad tax base that, in turn, pays for the services, employment insurance, pensions, and income supports that widen economic security for everybody.
In short, good jobs and other forms of economic security should make life affordable – especially when these jobs are widely available and workers have access to the training and education needed to get and keep a good paying job. These kinds of jobs come from all types of employers – from small business to big business, public to private employers, and everything in-between. One job for government is to support the economic, training, and infrastructure conditions that build more of this kind of work.
Effective social safety nets provided by governments help too, including the safety and security that employment insurance, disability assistance, economic assistance, child and family benefits, public and private pensions, and universal access to quality health care (including mental health care) provide. These safety nets are especially important for workers in commodity industries and for towns with a history of boom and bust economics. These kinds of social safety nets create conditions for expanding the middle class and building a more sustainable, high wage, economy.
We must also keep in mind that not all work is paid work, even though unpaid work is often the most valuable work performed for a community. For example, most childcare and elder care is unpaid – carried out by family members out of love, not for compensation. In addition, community volunteers are essential workers, making communities strong and helping connect people without any payment for this work. Governments can help support unpaid work by recognizing its value and factoring the benefits of unpaid work into its economic plans and outlook.
A strong private-sector employment base is important, indeed essential, to building and growing our local economy. But we can’t build a strong economy on paid work, and high paid work, alone. All kinds of work, including low-wage and unpaid work, should be recognized. Income security across the community should be a priority, built from a base of economic innovation, productively, and private-sector ingenuity.
- Focus on economic growth – including by increased population with a focus on keeping young families and older residents in Prince Rupert through good paying entry level (career path) jobs (resource and trade sectors), senior housing, and health care
- Support the development of all sizes of businesses – including craft industries and innovation (focus on value added, local and unique crafts and technologies for export)
- Focus on services – better connect consumers and producers and provide access to a competitive market for basic services
- Be intensely local – help government agencies locate programs (such as training and education) that build on our unique location and regional resources (become a leader in coastal programs at the scales that our community is especially suited for)
- Work with schools and colleges to increase trade, craft, and professional training based in Prince Rupert – find and develop at-home talent
Competitive Prices
Costs are the other side to the affordability coin, especially the costs of meeting basic needs: Groceries, water, housing, heating, transportation, childcare, education, and health care.
Strong markets – including markets based on competition, innovation, and free-enterprise – can help keep costs affordable for many of the things that we need or want. A key to this is competition and an open market-place. Local government can support competition by providing good basic infrastructure, setting zoning regulations with competition in mind, and coordinating with training programs and government service provides to support new business development in our community.
A balanced economy, with both public universal provision of things like health care and education, and private-sector delivery of things like affordable housing, food, transportation, and services, works best by removing roadblocks to innovation, increased (healthy) competition, and common-sense regulation of utilities and other essential industries. Getting this balance right matters to keeping prices affordable – while maintaining supply at the level of demand.
- Keep taxes and fees low – local government should keep taxes and fees low by focusing on doing its part by building and maintaining infrastructure (including roads), running shared services for property owners, businesses, and residents (water, sewer, trash, public safety and fire protection), and keeping community centres (parks and recreation) open and accessible — leaving the rest to community, business, and civic organizations
- Focus on housing supply – work with public, private, and public-private builders to expand housing supply for families, including subsidized housing and senior housing
- Increase competition for groceries and focus on quality and prices
- Increase competition for air transportation and focus on quality and prices
- Work with all levels of government and work regionally to solve the health care crisis (primary care providers and access to emergency care)
- Continue to fix the city’s aging infrastructure and continue to work with all levels of government to provide funding and other supports
- Focus city government on providing the essentials: Roads, public safety (police) and property protection (fire), trash, water and sewer, pro-competition zoning and land use regulation, parks and recreation, pro-building housing vision (all levels of affordability)
Thicken the Coin
Between having enough money to buy needed things and the cost of things you need is the middle of the coin. The thicker the coin, the more you have to spend on (or save for) the things you want.
This includes really important things like having more time off with your family, fun and recreation, visiting all the places on your bucket list, adding a spare room to your house, getting that new RV, ATV, or boat, helping your children achieve their own dreams, and perhaps even some luxuries (just for the fun of it). An affordable economy widens the space between needs and wants.
Building and sustaining a strong local economy requires good jobs, economic growth, affordable supply, ample trades workers, and access to opportunity. This is how we build thick coins, widening the distance between what you earn and what things cost.
Let’s build a local economy that expands affordability for as many people as we can, making Prince Rupert a good place to live the middle-class dream. This dream is built on a balanced and mixed economy – one that’s run on the work of trades workers, office workers, service workers, public-service workers, private-sector workers, college and non-college trained, professionals, retired people, volunteer workers, parents and grandparents, artisans and crafters, and everyone else in the community.
We live in a region rich in resources, skills, ingenuity, and possibility. Let’s build a strong economic base for ourselves, growing and strengthening our economy and making middle-class life affordable and accessible for all.
- Continue to focus on quality of life through volunteer efforts and societies – local festivals and community events make Prince Rupert special and are essential to quality of life
- Continue to support arts and recreation programs – we have a vibrant arts and music scene that supports tourism and improves quality of life, we also have excellent recreation facilities that make a huge difference for our community (continue to support and develop these and other initiatives)
Image Source: Skilled Trades BC
