OK, so we’re four years into the worst financial and economic crisis since the 1930s. The Occupy movement has persuaded virtually the entire media that inequality is the number one policy issue of the day. Quebec students have now decided it’s not just tuition fees they don’t like but also capitalism, neo-liberalism, Formula One racing and their province’s corporate-toady political class. Europe is stressing out in ways not seen since the 1940s. At times it seems our whole way of life is under siege. With everything unravelling fast, poverty must be skyrocketing. Right?
Wrong! On Monday Statistics Canada published the latest edition of its annual publication “Income of Canadians,” which looks at income data for 2010. Hold on to your paper/tablet/smartphone: In 2010 the percentage of Canadians who earned less than Statistics Canada’s “low-income cut-off” and therefore by universal practice are defined as poor actually fell.
It went from 9.5% to 9.0%. True, it didn’t go to zero. But still: The world is falling apart, inequality (and unfairness reportedly are soaring) and yet Canada’s poverty numbers are getting better?
In fact, by this measure Canada’s poverty rate was at an all-time low in 2010, if you accept that in this context “all-time” means back to 1976, the earliest date for which this calculation appears on StatsCan’s books (now webpage). Yes, the rate for 2010 is even lower than in 2007, the previous best year, when it was 9.1%. It’s true that, in terms of absolute numbers of Canadians falling below the low-income cut-off, 2007 was a better year, by 70,000 people. But even so, 2010 represented an improvement of 120,000 from 2009.
Other numbers are equally surprising — and encouraging. The number of people living in families headed by single moms and making less than the low-income cut-off did rise slightly (by 3,000) in 2010. But that’s 20,000 fewer than in 2008 and more than 75,000 fewer than in 2007. In total in 2010, the overall number of moms and kids in that situation was less than half what it had been in 2002 (just 323,000 in 2010 compared to 647,000 in 2002). In terms of percentages, the rate of low income among single-mom families was 20.6% in 2010, the second lowest it has ever been, exceeding only the rate for 2009, also a post-crash year.
more
William Watson: Poverty no worse for crisis | FP Comment | Financial Post
Wrong! On Monday Statistics Canada published the latest edition of its annual publication “Income of Canadians,” which looks at income data for 2010. Hold on to your paper/tablet/smartphone: In 2010 the percentage of Canadians who earned less than Statistics Canada’s “low-income cut-off” and therefore by universal practice are defined as poor actually fell.
It went from 9.5% to 9.0%. True, it didn’t go to zero. But still: The world is falling apart, inequality (and unfairness reportedly are soaring) and yet Canada’s poverty numbers are getting better?
In fact, by this measure Canada’s poverty rate was at an all-time low in 2010, if you accept that in this context “all-time” means back to 1976, the earliest date for which this calculation appears on StatsCan’s books (now webpage). Yes, the rate for 2010 is even lower than in 2007, the previous best year, when it was 9.1%. It’s true that, in terms of absolute numbers of Canadians falling below the low-income cut-off, 2007 was a better year, by 70,000 people. But even so, 2010 represented an improvement of 120,000 from 2009.
Other numbers are equally surprising — and encouraging. The number of people living in families headed by single moms and making less than the low-income cut-off did rise slightly (by 3,000) in 2010. But that’s 20,000 fewer than in 2008 and more than 75,000 fewer than in 2007. In total in 2010, the overall number of moms and kids in that situation was less than half what it had been in 2002 (just 323,000 in 2010 compared to 647,000 in 2002). In terms of percentages, the rate of low income among single-mom families was 20.6% in 2010, the second lowest it has ever been, exceeding only the rate for 2009, also a post-crash year.
more
William Watson: Poverty no worse for crisis | FP Comment | Financial Post
