[homeles_ot-l] Fwd: New data on low income in Canada, suggesting a higher poverty rate than often interpreted and reported

[Terrie]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Rob Rainer <rob at napo-onap.ca>
Date: 2008/12/24
Subject: New data on low income in Canada, suggesting a higher poverty rate
than often interpreted and reported
To: Rob Rainer <rob at napo-onap.ca>



*Human Resources and Social Development Canada (HRSDC) has just released a
new report, Low Income in Canada: 2000-2006 Using the Market Basket Measure.
*  The Market Basket Measure (MBM) is a more robust proxy indicator of
poverty in Canada compared to other principal low income measures.



Using the MBM, this report documents a decline in the incidence of low
income from 2000-2006, from 14.6% to 11.9%.  The 11.9% markedly contrasts
with the 10.5% incidence of low income using the Low Income Cut-Off After
Tax: the LICO AT is perhaps the most widely used proxy indicator of
poverty.  In other words, using the MBM one could conclude that the poverty
rate in Canada in 2006 was some 12% higher than that inferred from LICO AT
data.



Other key findings from the report include:



·        The depth of low income in Canada ("the average gap between the
disposable income of all economic families in low income and their
low-income thresholds expressed as a percentage") was 31.4% in 2006,
virtually unchanged from 32.2% in 2000.  In other words, the average
"economic family" in low income in 2006 lived some 31% below that family's
inferred poverty line, using the MBM as the poverty proxy.

·        For children and youth under 18 the incidence of low income was
14.4% in 2006, a drop from 18.1% in 2000 but nonetheless higher than the
11.4% reported in 2006 using the LICO AT.

·        The highest risk demographic group for low income in 2006 was
"unattached individuals" aged 45-64, with a 33.8% incidence of low income
(i.e., one in three single adults aged 45-64 lived in low income in 2006).
Other high risk groups were the disabled (32.8%), lone parents (30.7%),
Aboriginal Canadians off reserve (28.6%), and recent immigrants (24.2%).

·        The lowest risk demographic group was seniors 3.3%, notably due
income transfers (e.g., Canada Pension Plan, Old Age Security, Guaranteed
Income Supplement) available for this group.



For the full report, see
http://www.hrsdc.gc.ca/eng/publications_resources/research/categories/inclusion/2008/sp-864-10-2008/page00.shtml
.

Rob Rainer
Executive Director/directeur général
National Anti-Poverty Organization / l'Organisation nationale anti-pauvreté
1210 - 1 rue Nicholas Street
Ottawa ON K1N 7B7 Canada
tél 613.789.0096; toll free/sans frais 1.800.810.1076
fax 613.244-5777
rob at napo-onap.ca; www.napo-onap.ca

Everybody should be guaranteed a decent basic income. A rich country...can
well afford to keep everybody out of poverty.
*John Kenneth Galbraith**


*





-- 
Terrie ( mocharebyl at gmail.com )
"If you see an injustice being committed, you aren't an observer, you are a
participant." June Callwood
Prejudice is a burden that confuses the past, threatens the future and
renders the present inaccessible.  Maya Angelou
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