The Impact of Social Policy on the Working Poor in Canada and the United States

Abstract

It is 5:30 a.m. on an early spring morning in the Pacific Northwest. Pigeons mutter, squawk, and whistle outside bedroom windows on Capitol Hill. One hundred and twenty miles to the north, the sun hits the peaks of the North Shore mountains as the first buses carry drowsy passengers on their way to work. In Seattle and Vancouver, delivery trucks roll down largely empty streets, as the workers on the morning shift prepare for the new day. Both cities are carved out of the Pacific Ocean rainforests—flourishing in frequent misty rains—in valleys surrounded by towering snow-capped mountains.