PROBLEMS — Economy & work

Tier-1/2 problems in this domain have their own files: PR-X09 US trade war & geopolitical rupture.

This file carries the economy-and-work problems that sit around the trade-war spine row: two automation problems (AI exposure, driving automation), the wider precarity and poverty layer beneath the cost-of-living umbrella, the basic-income evidence file, immigrant integration, and three thinner municipal rows — downtown vitality, the city's own workforce, and financial-system resilience. Wave-8 problems (X01, X16, X03, X06, X07) carry proposed issue slugs only — organizing their questions is in scope; no topic key is ratified yet.

X01 · AI and the future of work & income

The problem. The exposure is broad and the realized signal is now visible at the entry level: the Conference Board classes 57.4% of Canadian jobs as highly exposed to AI (49.0% competing / 51.0% augmenting), and the one displacement signal the futures corpus has verified economy-wide is hiring softening for 22–25-year-olds in AI-exposed occupations. The deeper problem is the transition question — income replacement, meaning and life beyond work, and whether Toronto captures AI's upside or only its displacement. Full receipts: register entry X01.

What we're asking. If most jobs are exposed and the realized signal is already showing up in entry-level hiring, what is the actual transition plan — and does Toronto capture AI's upside or only its displacement? - The radical-reform test — if even half of Seed 2's 40%+ replicable-today estimate is right, tinkering isn't a serious response: what's the most radical reform this movement would actually stand behind — shorter work weeks, a machine dividend, common ownership of the productive robots, a paid-for-life right to retrain — and which is "obvious once said out loud" versus "we'd get called crazy"? (automata AU61) - Sizing the net to the number — does the safety net's size scale to the displacement estimate, and what does it look like at 10% displaced versus 40% versus a number so high "a job" stops being the unit we plan around? (automata AU93) - A floor without a poverty trap — how is a Toronto dignity floor designed so receiving it never punishes someone for also doing paid or credit work, so it's a floor to stand on rather than a hole to fall into? (livelihood L59) - What replaces the wage — when AI ends the job but not the work, what is the actual unit of livelihood that replaces it: income floor plus chosen work, ownership shares, credits, or a braid of all three? (livelihood L1) - What is the Toronto-CMA-specific AI exposure receipt the register names as a gap — does the 57.4% Canada-wide figure hold, run higher, or run lower for this labour market? - Beyond the 22–25-year-old hiring-softening signal, is there any Toronto-specific tracking of realized displacement by sector, or is every current number still a prediction?

The shelf. backgrounder · not published · brief · card — plus the companion dayone pair ai-life-beyond-work and ai-toronto-sovereignty-opportunity (both full sets).

Unexplored. Register gap: Toronto-CMA exposure receipt; realized-displacement tracking beyond the entry-level signal.

X16 · Automation of driving work

The problem. Waymo is preparing an application to Ontario's AV pilot program to bring robotaxis to Toronto, and the mayor has publicly conditioned any deployment on not costing drivers their livelihoods. Toronto alone counts 80,429 approved ride-hail (PTC) licences plus roughly 11,265 taxi drivers — before truck and delivery drivers are even counted — disproportionately immigrant men. The policy lever (paired with G1) decides the pace; the problem is the livelihood cliff if pace outruns transition support. Full receipts: register entry X16.

What we're asking. Is the driverless-conversion path to Toronto's ride-hail, taxi, and delivery workforce actually safe, and is it actually viable — engineering-honest, not enthusiasm? - The conversion-kit reality check — is a driverless-conversion-kit enterprise actually viable and actually safe: where is autonomous-driving tech honestly at, what does a safe retrofit require, and are the safety/liability/insurance/regulatory realities (provincial and federal, not municipal — jurisdiction honesty) a real engineering path or a dangerous shortcut? (torontoos T50) - Democratize without cutting corners — how do we make driverless tech and automation free or low-cost for all rather than a luxury of the rich, without trading safety for accessibility — and how do we prove that trade wasn't made? (torontoos T51) - The congestion-and-labour tradeoff, honestly scoped — what is the potential for autonomous vehicles to reduce congestion, labour costs and emissions specifically in Toronto, and what is the actual regulatory-readiness timeline? (transit_foundations TF-Q124) - Role transformation for the threatened workforce — applying the same logic the corpus uses for the city forester and the waste-truck operator: what does a driver's next role look like as a real ladder up, not a sideways shuffle, so the transition is something to want rather than fear? (regeneration RG25/RG56, applied) - What is Toronto's truck and delivery driver count — the register names StatCan table 98-10-0593 as the source to mine — and how does it change the 91,000+ figure once counted? - As Waymo's application to Ontario's AV pilot program actually lands, what is the mayor's public livelihood commitment translating into — anything binding, or only a statement?

The shelf. backgrounder only — no dayone, brief, or card exists yet for this slug.

Unexplored. Register gap: truck/delivery count; Waymo application status as it lands.

X03 · Precarious work & job quality

The problem. Beneath the gig headline (4.7% of Ontario workers' main job, LFS 2022–23) sits a wider contested layer: StatCan counted 871,000 gig workers plus roughly 1.2 million temporary/casual/contract workers in 2024, and definitional fights over how to even count this (Fraser vs. PEPSO framings) are themselves part of the problem's politics. Full receipts: register entry X03.

What we're asking. Beyond the 4.7% gig headline, what does Toronto's wider precarious-work layer actually look like, and who's accountable for the platforms and intermediaries inside it? - Partners-never-adversaries, tested — does that stance clearly cover drivers and couriers; does it cover the platforms themselves (partner, regulate, or route around), and the temp-agency layer that intermediates so much precarious work? (livelihood L19) - The intermediary workforce's next role — bank tellers, loan officers, temp-agency staff, platform workers, every kind of middleman the extraction critique targets — what is each one's actual next role, offered as transformation rather than attack? (livelihood L74) - The sub-minimum-wage sub-base — where is the tier below minimum wage, paid in cash, off the books, under threat of an immigration call, actually happening in Toronto's economy, and what enforcement design reaches workers too afraid to complain because complaining risks their status? (newcomers N16) - What is the Toronto-CMA precarity share receipt the register names as a gap — does the city run above or below the 4.7%/871k provincial figures? - Since Foodora's couriers won a landmark union ruling and the platform then exited Canada, what does gig-worker protection that survives a platform's exit actually look like — portable benefits, sectoral bargaining, or the city's own licensing leverage?

The shelf. backgrounder · not published · brief · card — plus the companion worker-cooperatives-community-wealth (full set).

Unexplored. Register gap: Toronto-CMA precarity share receipt.

X06 · Deep poverty & income security

The problem. Toronto is the child-poverty capital of large urban Canada: 25.7% of children — 119,690 kids — live below the CFLIM-AT line (2023), two points above the next-worst big city, with half of one-parent families poor and 27.1% of Indigenous children affected. Provincial income floors erode beneath this: Ontario Works' real-terms decline is documented at length, and food-bank depth data shows the same households at the sharpest edge. Full receipts: register entry X06; see also H2 Food insecurity in the health domain for the sharpest daily surface of the same problem.

What we're asking. What is the addressee map for closing Toronto's income floor — which pieces are municipal, provincial, or federal — and has anyone drawn it before recommending anything? - The addressee map itself — which needs-floor components are municipal levers (rec, transit passes, library, connectivity, food programs) versus provincial (OW/ODSP rates, health) versus federal (income architecture, criminal law)? Draw the map before drafting a single recommendation. (mci MC50) - The fear index — fear of not having enough drives harm before actual lack does; what are Toronto's measurable "fear of scarcity" indicators (eviction filings, food-bank first-visits, payday-loan volumes, benefit churn), and could the program publish a Fear Index as honestly as a poverty line? (mci MC45) - Needing-least as the real number — if the goal isn't raising everyone's income but lowering the cost of a good life, what is Toronto's honest "needing-least" number — what would a genuinely good life here cost per month if housing, food, transit and care were designed for low need? (livelihood L47) - What is the all-ages Toronto poverty receipt the register names as missing — does a current all-ages number exist anywhere, or is child poverty the only measured slice? - What is the depth-of-poverty figure (average distance below the line) for Toronto households below it — a materially different policy problem than the headline count alone?

The shelf. backgrounder · not published · brief · card — plus ontario-works-rate-history-erosion (full set).

Unexplored. Register gap: all-ages Toronto poverty receipt; depth-of-poverty receipt.

G2 · Basic income & income-security evidence

The problem. The evidence file for X06's biggest lever: pilots diverge across Finland, Stockton and OpenResearch, and Ontario's own cancelled Basic Income Pilot returned no verdict. Scored under X06 in the ranked list. Full receipts: register entry G2.

What we're asking. Given Ontario cancelled its own Basic Income Pilot mid-flight, is there a city-scale instrument Toronto could build that doesn't depend on Queen's Park saying yes? - The direct seed question — is the honest stance to argue the income floor FOR and AGAINST, to build the city-scale instrument that doesn't need the province, or both — and does the livelihood problem accept being where the poverty buck stops? (livelihood L3) - What did Ontario's cancelled Basic Income Pilot's own interim data actually show before cancellation — is there a usable partial verdict anywhere in the public record? - Of the international pilots the corpus already tracks, which is most comparable to a dense, high-cost city like Toronto rather than a smaller or more rural setting?

The shelf. backgrounder only, plus the related basic-income-universal-services (backgrounder/dayone/brief/card, full set).

Unexplored. No separate gaps line of its own in the register (scored under X06). The corpus's WORK & ECONOMY FUTURES — where work and livelihoods are heading, honestly scored (one of this library's own project records FUTURES THIRD PASS) file is named as carrying the pilot record in more depth than this rollup reproduces.

X07 · Immigrant integration & the diaspora economy

The problem. Beyond shelter pressure (E4, in the housing domain): credential recognition, underemployment of skilled newcomers, the integrity of the intake system, and the upside the city forgoes when integration fails. Demographic policy swings (X12) now cut the flow while settlement capacity remains strained. Full receipts: register entry X07.

What we're asking. Where is Toronto actually at on credential recognition — the measured baseline of the "engineer driving a cab" problem — and what's the fast-but-safe fix? - The credential-recognition baseline — how do we tap the extraordinary talent already here — human-rights advocates, journalists, engineers, artists who fled and are now driving cabs — as the FIRST move: rapid, respectful credential recognition and a path back into the work they trained for? (newcomers N34) - The system-integrity framing, held honestly — how do we engage the "exploitation of the system" debate — real, documented policy debates over program integrity, fraud, and credential/language mismatches — in language that locates the failure in system design, never in the character of the people the system failed? (newcomers N48) - The thrive-index — what would make Toronto the best city in the world for an immigrant to land, live and thrive, defined measurably: work at skill level, credential-recognition time, loneliness, exploitation exposure, cost of establishment, belonging? (newcomers N58) - The high-ROI social wins — where does a dollar spent on fast credential recognition, connection infrastructure, or ending wage theft return multiples in taxes paid and poverty avoided — measured, not assumed? (newcomers N46) - What is the register's named underemployment receipt (the newcomer earnings gap versus the Canadian-born) — does a current Toronto-specific number exist anywhere?

The shelf. backgrounder · not published · brief · card — plus the companion pair immigration-integrity-exploitation and immigration-mutual-learning-integration (both full sets).

Unexplored. Register gap: underemployment receipt (newcomer earnings gap).

D6 · Downtown & main-street vitality

The problem. Downtown is 3% of Toronto's land but roughly 40% of non-residential floor area and 500,000+ jobs — its post-2020 recalibration (office conversion, main-street vacancy) is a fiscal-base problem as much as a streetscape one. Full receipts: register entry D6.

What we're asking. As remote work permanently changes downtown office demand, does Toronto convert the shift into housing supply, or watch vacancy and the tax base erode together? - Converting the shift, not fighting it — if knowledge workers really are as productive from home, what happens to downtown office demand, and how do we convert that into the largest supply of new homes Toronto has seen in a generation, instead of fighting the trend? (homes HM29) - The vacant-storefront fix, honest about landlord economics — vacant storefronts beside record commercial rents: what's the fix that's honest about landlord economics (commercial rent control argued both ways, vacancy taxes, community ownership of main-street real estate), and what structure survives decades given the Artscape-receivership warning? (livelihood L9) - The FOR/AGAINST on the harder tools — a land-value tax, a vacancy tax with teeth, an end to housing as a retirement vehicle: for each, who wins, who's hurt, how fast, and what transition is owed to the people on the losing side? (homes HM19) - What is Toronto's current office and retail vacancy receipt — the register's own named gap — and has it stabilized, worsened, or improved since the 2020 shock?

The shelf. backgrounder · not published · brief · card — plus local-economy-main-streets-small-business (full set).

Unexplored. Register gap: current Toronto office/retail vacancy receipt.

F1 · City workforce & labour relations

The problem. Service delivery runs on 40,000+ city workers; bargaining rounds and vacancy rates set what residents actually get. The register calls its own claims register thin here. Full receipts: register entry F1.

What we're asking. With 40,000+ city workers delivering everything else in this register, what do vacancy rates and bargaining outcomes actually do to service delivery — and where's the receipt? - Partnering with the institutions, not fighting them — how do we partner rather than fight council, city staff, and unions, so reform reads as an upgrade to their role rather than a threat to it? (agora A58) - Organized labour as a first-class partner — how does the city stay unambiguously with workers and their unions through any automation, gig, or co-op transition, rather than routing around collective bargaining? (livelihood L82) - The build's own sustainability — a decade-scale civic effort fails if it burns out the staff it depends on — what does building sustainably, at a pace humans can hold, actually require? (torontoos T63) - What is the city's current vacancy rate by major service department, and does it correlate with the service-delivery complaints residents actually file? - What did the last several bargaining rounds' outcomes actually change about the service levels residents experience — is there any receipt connecting the two?

The shelf. backgrounder · not published · brief · card.

Unexplored. Register: "claims register thin; receipts gap" — no more specific named gap. The question bank is similarly thin: three tangential hits across 1,234 rows, none aimed squarely at vacancy rates or bargaining outcomes.

J1 · Financial-system resilience & rails

The problem. Payments modernization, fraud growth, and open banking's 2026 rollout are federally decided but locally felt. Full receipts: register entry J1.

What we're asking. As open banking rolls out federally in 2026 and payment fraud grows, what actually changes for a Toronto resident or small business — and is anyone tracking it locally? - Fragility as a design input, held honestly — is there a real chance the current financial system is unstable, and if so, does that make parallel-rails redundancy a genuine resilience feature rather than an ideological choice? (abundance AB88 — fund-design framing, adjacent rather than a municipal receipt) - What does Toronto see locally from the 2026 open-banking rollout — any city-level exposure through procurement, resident fraud complaints, or small-business payment costs worth tracking? - The register names payment fraud as "growing" — growing by how much, measured how, and does Toronto have any distinct exposure from being Canada's financial-sector core? - Who holds any municipal accountability for the consumer-protection side of this file — is it purely federal/OSFI territory, or does the city have a lever here at all?

• What does a Toronto household or small business actually lose in a payments outage, a fraud wave, or a bank failure — the concrete local exposure map behind the national statistics — and who in this city is responsible for even thinking about it?
• Which jurisdictions run genuinely resilient, low-cost payment rails — India's UPI at national scale, Brazil's Pix — and what do their fraud and inclusion numbers honestly show against ours?

The shelf. No dedicated backgrounder, dayone, brief, or card exists for this problem in the corpus — SHELF EMPTY.

Unexplored. Register: "CL series under J1's own wave" (compact; no receipts summarized on the face of the entry). The question bank is essentially silent — this is the thinnest-covered problem in the domain by both register depth and harvest volume.

Across this domain — steal from the world, collect everything, find the best minds

• Who handles work-in-transition best in the world — Singapore's SkillsFuture credits, Denmark's flexicurity, Germany's short-time work that held employment through shocks, the basic-income evidence base (Finland's experiment, Stockton's SEED, GiveDirectly's long-run data), Calgary's office-to-housing conversion program a two-hour flight away — what EXACTLY does each do, what did it cost, and which pieces does Toronto steal for AI displacement, precarity, poverty, and its own downtown?
• Collect ALL existing recommendations across this domain — every future-of-work task force, poverty-reduction strategy review, credential-recognition report, and downtown-recovery plan already written for Toronto and Ontario — what was recommended, costed, adopted, ignored?
• Who are the best minds and organizations on labour transition, income security, and immigrant economic inclusion anywhere — and who in Toronto is already doing world-class work (in the universities, the settlement sector, the labour movement) that policy never cites?

Source tags like (homes HM12) mark questions carried from the project's own question banks (QUESTION_HARVEST.csv); untagged questions were raised in the 2026-08-11 rewrite.