BC's Child Poverty Rate Tops Again

Or is this headline just trying to manipulate you?
By Rob Annandale
The Tyee
Published: November 26, 2007

A new report suggests that one in five B.C. children is poor, making the province’s child poverty rate the highest in Canada for the fourth consecutive year.

At 20.9 per cent, B.C.’s proportion of children living below the poverty line continues to drop from its 2002 peak but is still substantially higher than the 16.8 per cent national average, according to 2005 Statistics Canada data analyzed by First Call: B.C. Child and Youth Advocacy Coalition.

“Other provinces have already announced poverty reduction strategies,” First Call’s Michael Goldberg said in a press release. “It is time for B.C., the province with the worst child poverty rates, to wake up to reality and start taking its responsibilities seriously.”

The report shows Saskatchewan, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Newfoundland would all fare worse than B.C. if not for higher levels of government assistance.

One important step towards reducing poverty in the province, according to First Call, would be raising the minimum wage from $8 an hour to $10. The report points out that a person working full-time, year-round for the minimum – let alone the $6 training wage – cannot rise above the urban poverty line.

So far, the Liberals have argued that such an increase would be harmful to the booming economy and have blocked opposition efforts on this front.

But the question of raising the minimum wage is not the only politically divisive issue here. The very definition of poverty has become an ideological battlefield and the framing of the problem may have unintended consequences.

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