Anti-Poverty Inactivists Must Be Running Scared

It seems like some of them will have to go out and get a job rather than feeding at the public trough.......

The Poverty Industry's Latest Numbers Game

Lorne Gunter
National Post


Monday, November 05, 2007


Why have anti-poverty groups recently been so obsessed with the allegedly growing gap between rich and poor in Canada? Because it is just about the only bit of "bad" news left on the poverty front. It's the only angle they have left to pressure politicians for more social spending -- and, of course, continued funding for anti-poverty groups.

The past decade has witnessed a tremendous success in the eradication of poverty. Even using Statistics Canada's overly loose definition of poverty, rates have fallen dramatically since 1996. Where a decade ago nearly 16% of Canadians were living with low incomes, today under 11% are.

After accounting for inflation, seniors' incomes have risen 15%, leaving just 6.1% of Canadians over 65 in low income.

The poverty rate for single moms has fallen from 52.7% to 29.1%; still too high, but a vast improvement in just a decade. Their median incomes have risen from $21,900 to $30,400, and the increase has been almost entirely from higher market earnings rather than social payments. Where just 10 years ago 60% of single moms' incomes came from government, now just 25% does.

Even the number of children living in poverty has fallen more than a third since 1996.

To be sure, pockets of dire poverty persist. According to John Richards of Simon Fraser University, who recently analyzed the issue in a study for the C.D. Howe Institute, aboriginals, the undereducated, the mentally ill, the physically handicapped and immigrants trapped in ethnic ghettos remain poor at unacceptably high levels. He also found that high effective tax rates on the "near poor" discourage some from moving from social assistance to work.

But for the vast majority of Canadians, the news is good. Moreover, that good news is even better than official statistics indicate.

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Caution: No matter how much has been accomplished even if one child goes hungry then we as a race have failed............