| Canadians working full time and earning minimum wage fall well under the poverty line and those workers making $10 a hour just scrape over it, says a new report by the National Council of Welfare.
The report calls on the federal and provincial governments to increase minimum wage and welfare rates and introduce more affordable housing and child care.
John Murphy, chair of the National Council of Welfare, says, in the 1990s, provinces dramatically reduced the number of people collecting welfare. Yet the people who re-entered the workforce often aren’t much better off even if they’re working full time.
"The people who have gone off welfare and have gone into minimum wage jobs are not over the poverty line. We always think people working full time should be able to get over the poverty line. That’s the staggering part of the report," says Murphy. "In some cases they could be worse off."
Murphy says when people go off welfare and enter the workforce they lose some benefits such as free health care services and they suddenly have to pay for child care and transportation.
The report looked at income levels for people on welfare and low-wage workers in B.C., Ontario, Alberta and Quebec, using statistics from 2000.
It found that welfare rates remain "woefully inadequate" across Canada and particularly in Alberta. The report also pointed out that only Quebec had affordable child care rates for low-income workers and affordable housing remains a critical issue for all provinces
"Day care costs were crippling. For minimum-wage single parents in Ontario, Alberta and British Columbia, average rents and child care costs exceeded their take-home incomes. These workers were unable to afford their basic needs despite year-round work," says the report.
Affordable housing was an even more critical problem.
"The cost of rent for average apartments in all four cities was simply beyond the reach of everyone on welfare," says the report.
Murphy says it’s up to ordinary Canadians to exert pressure on politicians to address the problem.
"People have to start saying this is not acceptable," he says. |
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