Nearly four in ten Canadians believe they're just one or two paycheques away from poverty, according to a poll conducted for the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.

Pollster Environics surveyed 2,023 Canadians for the left-of-centre think tank. It found that Canadians are almost unanimous in their call for governments to protect their jobs.

"A shocking 96 per cent are saying 'Do something about investing in jobs and skills (and) training right now. Don't wait until there are better balanced budgets,'" CCPA senior economist Armine Yalnizyan told CTV's Canada AM on Monday.

The CCPA poll found that:

• 39 per cent of Canadians think they're just one or two paycheques from poverty
• 47 per cent struggle with personal debt regardless of income
• 44 per cent worry about having enough to retire comfortably
• 26 per cent say they are worse off than a decade ago

"The interesting thing about the poll is that Canadians looked beyond their own pocketbook issues and said ... that governments need to step up to the plate, too," Yalnizyan said.

She said Canadians look at Scandinavian and European countries' focus on poverty reduction and say, "Why can't we do that here?"

According to the survey:

• 90 per cent want the government to take leadership to reduce poverty
• 86 per cent believe concrete government action can greatly reduce poverty
• 81 per cent support reducing poverty by at least 25 per cent over the next five years

Yalnizyan noted that Canadians also appear to be increasingly concerned that their wages haven't kept up with the cost of living, with about one in four saying they are worse off than they were 10 years ago.

Wages not likely to increase soon

Conference Board of Canada's Prem Benimadhu says the current economic slowdown and what appears to be a looming recession will mean that wages are not likely to increase significantly in the near future.

"We have been talking to about 160 corporate leaders in just the last two weeks and we've seen a deceleration of wage increases all across Canada," Benimadhu said on Monday.

Benimadhu said he expects that unions, particularly in the manufacturing sector, are most concerned about job losses and preventing outsourcing. He said he doesn't expect union leaders to make wage hikes their top priority when they renegotiate contracts this year and next.

Benimadhu said that when the CBoC surveyed leaders in the manufacturing industry in July, they were forecasting wage increases of about 3.9 per cent.

"Today that figure has gone down to about to about three per cent, and in many sectors employees would be happy with a 2.5 per cent increase," he said.

U.S. lures Canadians

Meanwhile, a University of Guelph sociologist says a higher earning capacity in the U.S. is luring away some of Canada's brightest young university graduates.

David Walters and Statistics Canada's David Zarifa found that the earnings gap in Canada and the U.S. is most pronounced in fields such as engineering and computer science.

"Given such a large earnings gap, the recruitment strategies of some U.S. organizations and the boom in the information technology sector, it's not surprising that these degree-holders are leaving Canada in the greatest numbers," he said in a press release.

Their study, which is published in the latest issue of Canadian Public Policy, found that Canadians who went to the U.S. after graduation reported earning 24 per cent more than graduates who stayed home. The income disparity jumps even more for computer scientists and engineers, who earned nearly 50 per cent more than graduates who stayed in Canada.

Walters said that Canada will need to combat the disparity or lose some of its most vital professionals in the coming years. He says that could have long-term repercussions on the overall national economy.

"In this new age of technological innovation and knowledge-intensive labour, governments around the world have been pressured to tighten their grip on highly-skilled workers. The Canadian economy certainly needs these individuals in order to stay competitive in a global knowledge economy," Walters said.