Michael Mendelson

Chair

Michael is a Maytree Fellow. He was previously Senior Scholar at the Caledon Institute of Social Policy. He has held senior public service positions in Ontario and Manitoba: Deputy Secretary (Deputy Minister) of Cabinet Office in Ontario; Assistant Deputy Minister in Ontario’s Ministries of Finance, Community Services and Health; Secretary to Treasury Board and Deputy Minister of Social Services in Manitoba. He is currently Chair of the Board of the Environics Institute and a trustee of two private investment companies.

Michael Mendelson has published many articles on social and fiscal policy including: ‘Applying a Basic Income Lens to British Columbia’s Demand-Side Housing Programs’ with Jonathan Rhys Kesselman [BC Basic Income Panel and Maytree]; ‘In-Kind Versus Cash Benefits in Social Programs: Choices, Structures, and Delivery’ with Jonathan Rhys Kesselman [BC Basic Income Panel and Maytree]; ‘Lessons from Ontario’s Basic Income Pilot’ [Maytree]; ‘Basic Income’ or ‘Bait and Switch’? [Caledon Institute]; The Training Wheels Are Off: A Closer Look at the Canada Job Grant with Noah Zon [Mowat Centre for Policy Innovation and the Caledon Institute]; Is Canada (still) a fiscal union? [Caledon Institute]; Canada in 1996 is not the UK in 2011 [Barrow Cadbury Foundation, London, UK]; Aboriginal Peoples and Post-Secondary Education in Canada [Caledon Institute]; Financing the Canada and Quebec Pension Plans [American Association of Retired Persons, Public Policy Institute, Washington]; Measuring Child Poverty: Measuring Child Benefits [Caledon Institute]; Benefits for Children: A Four Country Study ed. with Ken Battle [Caledon Institute and the J. Rowntree Foundation].

He recently contributed to the Material Deprivation Index project led by Food Banks Canada and supported by the Environics Institute.

Michael Mendelson, a bald man with a gray beard, wears a dark pinstripe suit and charcoal turtleneck, smiling slightly as he stands against a plain light gray background.

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Michael Adams

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A child sits at a table drinking from a cup while an adult smiles nearby. The image, with its blurred, circular effect and L and R markers, could illustrate contexts used in developing a material deprivation index.

Developing a material deprivation index

In Canada, we commonly measure the extent of poverty by determining a poverty line. An alternative approach is to assess a household’s standard of living by looking at the goods and services it has, or has access to, and the activities in which it participates. This method of measuring poverty is called a material deprivation index (MDI).

July 4, 2024Reporteconomy,government role,research methods