Armine Yalnizyan

Armine Yalnizyan is a Canadian economist and columnist. In 2012, the CBC described her as one of Canada's "leading progressive economists". She appeared regularly on CBC TV's Lang and O'Leary Exchange, CBC Radio's Metro Morning, and contributed regularly to the "Economy Lab" at the Globe and Mail. She is currently a fellow with the Atkinson Foundation focused on the future of workers in a period of technological and demographic change. Her work focuses on "social and economic factors that determine our health and well being", and the care economy. She grew up in Toronto. at Université de Bordeaux, France. She received a master's degree in Industrial Relations from the University of Toronto in 1985, in labour market policy.

Career Yalnizyan began her focus on labour market dynamics as a graduate student, when she was asked to be research assistant to Sylvia Ostry in 1983, who had just returned from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, after five years as their chief economist. Ostry was researching the impacts of technological change and globalization on labour markets, and was one of the few mainstream economists at that time that paid attention to gender dynamics. These were and remain prescient themes for economic research.

One of Yalnizyan's first permanent jobs as an economist was in the 1980s with the Social Planning Council of Metropolitan Toronto. At that time the economy was struggling with the impact of the 1981–82 recession, and many full-time jobs were being lost. The Council had already documented the de-industrialization of Toronto, and many residents faced inadequate training and income supports given limited job opportunities. This worsened after 1990, as jobless benefits were cut in four rounds of reforms by consecutive Conservative and Liberal federal governments. Yalnizyan documented trends in full- and part-time job opportunities, working hours, incomes and labour adjustment policies, often adding a gendered analysis. She also tracked changes in fiscal policy (public spending cuts and tax cuts). Yalnizyan was a program director from 1987 to 1997, and returned to be the Council as Director of Research in 2006 and 2007. The Growing Gap Project, which was funded by Atkinson Charitable Foundation She remained with CCPA until 2017. She was a regular contributor to CCPA's Behind the numbers.

After leaving the CCPA, Yalnizyan worked with the Institute for Fiscal Studies and Democracy, the Mowat Centre and Policy Horizons.

Media

Toronto Star After years of being requested to write opinion pieces for the Toronto Star, the Star asked Yalnizyan in 2021 to become a regular contributor. She has written bi-weekly columns for the business section since September 2021.

Globe and Mail In 2010, Yalnizyan was invited to join a new Globe and Mail feature, the "Economy Lab", She contributed regularly to the Economy Lab from 2010 to 2014, and continued to contribute on an occasional basis after 2014.

Metro Morning with Matt Galloway In 2012 she became a regular bi-weekly business commentator on the CBC's number one morning show Metro Morning at CBLA-FM in Toronto with Matt Galloway which reaches a "million listeners in the Greater Toronto Area."

Board memberships

Yalnizyan was Chair of the Employment and Economics Committee of the National Action Committee on the Status of Women in 1989 and 1990, and served on that board until 1995. She served on the board of the Ottawa-based Public Interest Advocacy Centre (PIAC) from 2001 to 2016. She was an Advisory Board member for the Canadian Institutes for Health Research's Institute of Population and Public Health (CIHR/IPPH) from 2009 to 2016. Yalnizyan is a Senior Fellow of Massey College, University of Toronto. She was President of Canadian Association for Business Economics from 2017-2019, Vice President from 2013-2017, and has served on the board since 2005.

Awards Yalnizyan was honoured with the first Atkinson Economic Justice Award in 2002 and the University of Toronto's Morley Gunderson Prize in 2003. She was described as "the caring person's economist: a big-picture thinker who looks out for the little guy."

In 2023, Yalnizyan was awarded the Ellen Meiskins Wood Prize. In 2023 Yalnizyan was also awarded the Galbraith Prize in Economics.

Themes By 2010, Yalnizyan had "tracked trends in labour markets, income distribution, government budgets and access to services (particularly training and health care) for over 20 years." poverty in Canada, minimum wage, and basic services. In her 2017 Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives article on redistribution, Yalnizyan wrote that basic income models were market-based and focused on increasing money to access market freedom and choice. Yalnizyan stressed the health-based basic service approach through which more public services are provided that "are not contingent on income." This would provide "more freedom from the market".