|
Why
the poor are getting poorer |
|
|
The 2001 census figures on Canadian incomes reinforce what we have been hearing for a number of years now: The rich are getting richer and the poor ... well, the poor are still poor. In 2000, at the peak of the economic boom, more than one million Canadian families, almost 13 per cent of all families, were living in poverty. While the incomes of poor Canadians changed little over the past decade, those of the wealthiest soared — the richest 10 per cent of Canadian families saw their incomes increase by almost 15 per cent. The census figures also highlight the fact that recent immigrant families are increasingly struggling to make ends meet. In 2000, 39 per cent of children whose parents immigrated to Canada during the 1990s were living in poverty. Though appalling, this comes as no surprise. Despite being more educated than the average Canadian, approximately 4 out of 10 recent immigrants are unable to find employment that pays enough to lift them above the poverty level. While many Canadians benefited from the economic growth of the late '90s, the most marginalized were hit by unprecedented cutbacks to income support programs. At both the federal and provincial levels, governments mercilessly chopped away at the social safety net in the name of deficit reduction and tax cuts. People with disabilities, those who lost a job or could not get work found themselves increasingly unable to access programs such as unemployment insurance or social assistance. The "lucky" ones who could access these programs found their benefits cut back to unliveable levels. This was coupled with stagnant and ever-eroding minimum wages. In Ontario, the government has frozen the minimum wage at $6.85 since 1995. More than one million workers in the province are earning less than poverty level wages. In 1997, the federal Liberals overhauled unemployment insurance, renaming it Employment Insurance and dramatically tightening eligibility requirements and reducing benefit levels. Currently, only about 37 per cent of unemployed Canadians can access EI — down from 74 per cent in 1989. In Ontario, only one-quarter of unemployed workers can access benefits. The growing ranks of part-time, temporary and contract workers have been effectively shut out of the unemployment insurance system by these eligibility requirements. But these workers are still paying their premiums and the EI fund surplus has ballooned to more than $40 billion. People are paying into EI, but few receive their entitlements. Many unemployed workers who cannot access EI are forced to turn to social assistance for support. This is not much of an option. Since the mid-'90s provincial governments have been tearing their social assistance programs to shreds. Ontario is a "celebrated" example, slashing social assistance rates and making it harder than ever for people to access — or keep — benefits. Since 1995, social assistance benefits in Ontario have lost about 37 per cent of their value. A single person receiving social assistance gets just $530 per month. And with all of the complex rules associated with welfare, it is increasingly easy to lose these benefits — sometimes permanently. Don't be fooled by the promotional material for Canada's only significant anti-poverty initiative, the National Child Benefit. Provinces are allowed to claw back this tax benefit — worth about $100 per month per child — from families receiving social assistance. As a result, in Ontario and a number of other provinces, families receiving welfare never see a penny of this money. Is it surprising that close to 1.3 million children still live in poverty? The Statistics Canada figures present a picture of enduring poverty in Canada. What they don't show, however, is the increasing hardship and depth of poverty faced by the poorest individuals and families — those receiving welfare or working in low-paying jobs. It is well known that individual and community health suffers in direct proportion to the gap between the rich and poor. The life and death of Kimberly Rogers poignantly tell that story. In the latter half of the '90s, governments attacked the poor and by their policy decisions chose to create, rather than eradicate, poverty. Let's not mince words about who benefited from those choices. It's all in the census figures.
|
|
|
Page last updated May 24, 2003 |
|
