Only a patch
Report writers shocked by child poverty rates and gaps in the social safety net in P.E.I.
The 10th annual P.E.I. Child Poverty Report Card released this month warns that little progress has been made in poverty eradication, according to the latest data from Statistics Canada. In fact, we are slipping backwards.
The progress achieved in 2020 through pandemic benefits turned out to be only a patch on the social safety net. Poverty rates rebounded the next year. Child poverty increased by 163,550 more children in Canada in 2021 for a total of 1,162,460 Canadian children.
LOCAL REALITY
In P.E.I., the child poverty rate rose from 14.1 per cent in 2020 to 15 per cent in 2021, an increase of 6.4 per cent, adding 330 more children for a total of 4,420 children age 0-17 years caught in poverty. Sadly, child poverty is expected to continue to increase in the future.
The poverty rate for working age people ages 18-64 increased as well by 6.8 per cent, from 11,970 workers to 13,200, an addition of 1,230 working age people. The poverty increase for people 65 and over was the largest percentage-wise at 9.8 per cent, rising from 5,130 in 2020 to 5,910 in 2021, an increase of 780 seniors. Overall, there were 2,340 more Islanders in poverty making a total of 23,530 in 2021.
P.E.I. had the highest percentage of children living in food insecure households in Canada at 35.1 per cent, representing 11,000 children. Year over year, this is an increase of 3,000 children or 40 per cent. The rate in 2020 was 25.4 per cent. Also, year over year, P.E.I. has had the highest provincial food inflation at 7.1 per cent comparing December 2023 to December 2022,
according to the report card.
Children in visible minorities — Indigenous, racialized and migrant families – had disproportionately higher rates of poverty at 35.8 per cent compared to 13.4 per cent for non-racialized youth.
Children ages 0-2 years on P.E.I. have the highest child poverty rate at 16.9 per cent. Report card writers find this shocking as nursing mothers and children need additional food and nutrition during pregnancy and in the first two years of a child’s life.
SOCIAL ASSISTANCE
Government transfers are key in reducing poverty given low wage rates, seasonal and parttime work, and inadequate employment insurance. Without government transfers, Island children under six would have a whopping 41.2 per cent poverty rate and children 0-17 would be 37.6 per cent below the poverty line. Canada and its provinces and territories have an obligation to provide an adequate standard of living, yet this wealthy country stands in the middle, 19th out of 39 industrialized countries in its poverty rate.
The P.E.I. government still hasn’t established a provincial child benefit. P.E.I. is only one of two provinces in Canada without this policy. In addition, the Department of Social Development and Seniors is clawing back some of the CERB payments to people on social assistance who thought the CERB was to help them cope with the COVID pandemic.
Report card authors agree with the CCPA-NOVA Scotia that the minimum wage needs to be increased to $20 an hour and that social assistance has to be radically transformed.
MORE RECOMMENDATIONS
The $10 per day early learning child care is a welcome improvement. But it needs a sliding scale from $0-$10 so low-income families can afford it. There also needs to be more spaces made available in public facilities.
Some other report card recommendations include: more public and co-operative housing across the province; an end to homelessness by providing permanent housing; more public money invested in the public health-care system as well as provincial support for a universal pharmacare program.
Report authors believe that a job guarantee that offers decent work at decent pay, along with benefits and training, and is federally funded and administered at the community level, is the most effective way to eliminate poverty especially when accompanied by a strong social safety net.