It’s been over a year since Michael Bates, a massage therapist, has worked with a client.
One year ago, he was recovering from pancreatic cancer, and his doctors told him he was cleared to go back to work. Then, the pandemic hit, and the same week he thought he’d begin booking clients he was in lockdown inside his home.
“It was a rough time because I was healthy again. And then I couldn’t go anywhere. It’s been an emotional roller coaster,” he said. “It’s very difficult when you’re a tactile person to begin with.”
A licensed massage therapist for a decade, Bates, 63, of Gainesville, Florida, has not been able to earn an income for the last year. Then, in December, his cancer returned, and he started treatment again in January.
“So even if they lifted lockdown now, because of my white blood cell count, they don’t want me working,” he said. “So it’s like, great, here we go again.”
Michael Bates.Michael Bates
Bates is one of the many LGBTQ Americans who have experienced job and income loss from the pandemic. Sixty-four percent of LGBTQ people and their families experienced a job loss or disruption, compared to just under half (45 percent) of non-LGBTQ households, according to a study by the Movement Advancement Project, a nonprofit think tank.
“The pandemic just kind of dug in and found all of the inequalities and just turned that into this whole other kind of nightmare for people,” said M.V. Lee Badgett, a professor of economics and co-director of the Center for Employment Equity at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. “It is bleak. I mean, there’s really no way around that.”
The pandemic has exacerbated the existing issues members of the LGBTQ community face, including employment and housing discrimination, food insecurity, vulnerability to homelessness, unequal health care and higher rates of mental health issues.
Angela, 28, of Norwalk, Connecticut, who has asked that her last name not be used for privacy reasons, lost her job last year. She was employed with the same company for the last six years, working as a coordinator for a business facilitating study abroad programs for college students. She was laid off two months into the pandemic, after scrambling to help families get their kids home from overseas.
Angela has been looking for a job since July, after taking some time to process both the pandemic and her job loss, though its impact still lingers.
“Finding a job has been very difficult because I’ve been wading through depression, anxiety, insomnia,” she said. “I’ve had two surgeries in the last year. I’ve lost a family member. There’s just a lot to get through. And all the while, I need a job. If you had told me a year ago that I would still be unemployed in March of 2021, I would not have believed you.”
Angela has written 30 cover letters in the last week and in the last 10 days has submitted more applications than she has in the last six months, all while grappling with what she wants to do next and what jobs are actually available. “The entire industry I thought I could’ve been a part of came to a screeching halt,” she said.
Angela said she’s been looking for jobs that are more mission-focused. “I want to at least try to feel like what I’m doing is meaningful to someone or getting someone support where they otherwise may not have had it,” she said.
Though job loss and economic pain has been felt across the LGBTQ spectrum, the pandemic has had an additional impact on those who are especially vulnerable to higher rates of discrimination.
“When we dig a little deeper into the LGBT data, it does show two very clear patterns,” Badgett said. “One is that transgender people overall are experiencing a harder time, and LGBT people of color are experiencing an extra disadvantage, which is, again, not surprising.”
Prior to the pandemic, over half a million transgender adults lived below 200 percent of the federal poverty line (an annual income of $25,520 for those living alone), according to data from the Williams Institute, a public policy research institute at UCLA.
Once unemployed, trans and nonbinary workers must then navigate the discrimination that comes with the job application process, something Cedar Sutter, 22, of Frankfort, Illinois, has been experiencing since they lost their job earlier this year. Unemployment and extended job loss has left them and their boyfriend in a bad spot financially, and they are facing eviction and homelessness at the end of this month if they cannot find a way to pay the bills.
Cedar Sutter.Cedar Sutter
Sutter has been applying to jobs since November. Their previous position was at a library, and they’ve applied for all kinds of openings, including jobs at restaurants, breweries and retail outlets. Often, they never hear back from an application. Their mother recommended they remove their pronouns from their resume and replace their name with their dead name.
“It’s hard to think about going into a job interview and not being able to be myself, not being able to present myself the way that I would like, and the way that I’m comfortable, and how I am,” they said. “Having to pretend to be someone that I’m not at work or for an interview — it’s exhausting.”
After much reluctance, Sutter did remove their pronouns but left their name. “That was hard, extremely hard,” they said. “But I couldn’t bring myself to use my dead name on my resume. It just feels so disingenuous.”
Once they removed their pronouns, responses to job applications rolled in. “I don’t know if just the existence of the pronouns on my resume had something to do with it or if I wasn’t applying at the right places,” they said. “I would hate for [my pronouns] to be the reason why I haven’t been getting hired anywhere.”
Still, they are bracing themselves for rejoining the workforce and potentially having to defend their pronouns and name. “I don’t want to have to listen to my employer tell me that my pronouns and my identities are invalid just to get a job,” they said.
Gregory Canillas, 52, is a Black business owner and president and CEO of Soul2Soul Global, a company he founded in 2018 that hosts retreats for queer couples, particularly newlyweds or those about to get married. The retreats combine travel with relationship-building workshops, hosted by Canillas, who is a psychologist and associate professor at The Chicago School of Professional Psychology in Los Angeles.
Before the pandemic hit, Canillas’ business was growing, with retreats planned in San Francisco; Washington, D.C.; and Long Beach, California. Those were canceled.
“I’ve been able to keep the business open, but barely,” Canillas said. Revenue has dropped by half since the pandemic began, and while some of his business has gone online, the experience of travel, a crucial element of the workshop, cannot be replicated via Zoom.
Gregory Canillas.Hallo Smith
Canillas founded his company to fill a void: He saw people in his clinical work who were managing stressors specific to being LGBTQ, including issues around family of origin, acceptance and sexuality.
His retreats join together the shared experience of travel, which has been shown to strengthen relationships, with the structured element of a supportive workshop. The goal of the retreats is to give couples tools for a thriving marriage before it even begins.
“I went to graduate school to help people,” Canillas said. “That’s always been my thing. It’s always been part of who I am. Not being able to do that, it has not felt good. Helping people and helping couples — we need it. LGBT people need it as much as anybody else, maybe more so.”
Canillas is a member of a number of chambers of commerce and has been able to connect with other entrepreneurs who identify as LGBTQ, which he said “has been a tremendous support.” But, he said, “The larger business community, I don’t know that they’re always accepting.”
Canillas has applied for a number of grants. “This is probably an unprecedented time where you can access grants as LGBT and African American,” he said. “And I’ve applied for everything but really haven’t gotten anything. And some of that I think is related to being LGBT. Many of them were for Black entrepreneurs, but not necessarily Black LGBT entrepreneurs.”
As the world begins to rebound, and more and more people get vaccinated, economic growth is expected, but that growth could mask an unequal recovery for workers, according to McKinsey & Company, a management consulting firm. It recently released a report that said, “Unless bold action is taken, the postpandemic recovery will further exacerbate inequality.”
The report detailed the job losses that have disproportionately affected minority populations and suggested that both private- and public-sector businesses focus on developing new training and career pathways for displaced workers as a way to battle inequality.
For Badgett, moving forward requires a consideration of policy reform, such as paid family leave, access to health care and supplemental income for people making low wages.
“For the LGBT community, it’s recognizing that our community is diverse, that people aren’t all having the same experience,” Badgett said. “And that if we are a community, not just a market, not just a voting bloc, but a community, that we need to be thinking about people with low incomes, thinking about how low-wage workers, how people of color in our community are faring and supporting policies that will make their lives better, too. Not just policies that are good for people in relationships or people with good jobs at a big corporation — but everybody.”
OTTAWA – Canada’s unemployment rate held steady at 6.5 per cent last month as hiring remained weak across the economy.
Statistics Canada’s labour force survey on Friday said employment rose by a modest 15,000 jobs in October.
Business, building and support services saw the largest gain in employment.
Meanwhile, finance, insurance, real estate, rental and leasing experienced the largest decline.
Many economists see weakness in the job market continuing in the short term, before the Bank of Canada’s interest rate cuts spark a rebound in economic growth next year.
Despite ongoing softness in the labour market, however, strong wage growth has raged on in Canada. Average hourly wages in October grew 4.9 per cent from a year ago, reaching $35.76.
Friday’s report also shed some light on the financial health of households.
According to the agency, 28.8 per cent of Canadians aged 15 or older were living in a household that had difficulty meeting financial needs – like food and housing – in the previous four weeks.
That was down from 33.1 per cent in October 2023 and 35.5 per cent in October 2022, but still above the 20.4 per cent figure recorded in October 2020.
People living in a rented home were more likely to report difficulty meeting financial needs, with nearly four in 10 reporting that was the case.
That compares with just under a quarter of those living in an owned home by a household member.
Immigrants were also more likely to report facing financial strain last month, with about four out of 10 immigrants who landed in the last year doing so.
That compares with about three in 10 more established immigrants and one in four of people born in Canada.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 8, 2024.
The Canadian Institute for Health Information says health-care spending in Canada is projected to reach a new high in 2024.
The annual report released Thursday says total health spending is expected to hit $372 billion, or $9,054 per Canadian.
CIHI’s national analysis predicts expenditures will rise by 5.7 per cent in 2024, compared to 4.5 per cent in 2023 and 1.7 per cent in 2022.
This year’s health spending is estimated to represent 12.4 per cent of Canada’s gross domestic product. Excluding two years of the pandemic, it would be the highest ratio in the country’s history.
While it’s not unusual for health expenditures to outpace economic growth, the report says this could be the case for the next several years due to Canada’s growing population and its aging demographic.
Canada’s per capita spending on health care in 2022 was among the highest in the world, but still less than countries such as the United States and Sweden.
The report notes that the Canadian dental and pharmacare plans could push health-care spending even further as more people who previously couldn’t afford these services start using them.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 7, 2024.
Canadian Press health coverage receives support through a partnership with the Canadian Medical Association. CP is solely responsible for this content.
As Canadians wake up to news that Donald Trump will return to the White House, the president-elect’s protectionist stance is casting a spotlight on what effect his second term will have on Canada-U.S. economic ties.
Some Canadian business leaders have expressed worry over Trump’s promise to introduce a universal 10 per cent tariff on all American imports.
A Canadian Chamber of Commerce report released last month suggested those tariffs would shrink the Canadian economy, resulting in around $30 billion per year in economic costs.
More than 77 per cent of Canadian exports go to the U.S.
Canada’s manufacturing sector faces the biggest risk should Trump push forward on imposing broad tariffs, said Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters president and CEO Dennis Darby. He said the sector is the “most trade-exposed” within Canada.
“It’s in the U.S.’s best interest, it’s in our best interest, but most importantly for consumers across North America, that we’re able to trade goods, materials, ingredients, as we have under the trade agreements,” Darby said in an interview.
“It’s a more complex or complicated outcome than it would have been with the Democrats, but we’ve had to deal with this before and we’re going to do our best to deal with it again.”
American economists have also warned Trump’s plan could cause inflation and possibly a recession, which could have ripple effects in Canada.
It’s consumers who will ultimately feel the burden of any inflationary effect caused by broad tariffs, said Darby.
“A tariff tends to raise costs, and it ultimately raises prices, so that’s something that we have to be prepared for,” he said.
“It could tilt production mandates. A tariff makes goods more expensive, but on the same token, it also will make inputs for the U.S. more expensive.”
A report last month by TD economist Marc Ercolao said research shows a full-scale implementation of Trump’s tariff plan could lead to a near-five per cent reduction in Canadian export volumes to the U.S. by early-2027, relative to current baseline forecasts.
Retaliation by Canada would also increase costs for domestic producers, and push import volumes lower in the process.
“Slowing import activity mitigates some of the negative net trade impact on total GDP enough to avoid a technical recession, but still produces a period of extended stagnation through 2025 and 2026,” Ercolao said.
Since the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement came into effect in 2020, trade between Canada and the U.S. has surged by 46 per cent, according to the Toronto Region Board of Trade.
With that deal is up for review in 2026, Canadian Chamber of Commerce president and CEO Candace Laing said the Canadian government “must collaborate effectively with the Trump administration to preserve and strengthen our bilateral economic partnership.”
“With an impressive $3.6 billion in daily trade, Canada and the United States are each other’s closest international partners. The secure and efficient flow of goods and people across our border … remains essential for the economies of both countries,” she said in a statement.
“By resisting tariffs and trade barriers that will only raise prices and hurt consumers in both countries, Canada and the United States can strengthen resilient cross-border supply chains that enhance our shared economic security.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 6, 2024.
