Social Assistance Recipients
|
Poverty Line (LIM-AT – 2008)* |
Annual Income on Ontario Works (2008) |
Basic Income Gap |
|
| Single Adult on OW | $18,582 | $7,352 |
$11,230 (39.6% of LIM-AT) |
| Lone parent with one child on OW | $26,279 | $16,683 |
$9,596 (63.5% of LIM-AT) |
|
Poverty Line (LIM-AT – 2008) |
Annual Income on ODSP (2008) |
Basic Income Gap |
|
| Single Adult on ODSP | $18,582 | $12,647 |
$5,935 (68.1% of LIM-AT) |
* 2008 as latest year for LIM-AT benchmark.
At current social assistance rates, adults on OW and ODSP are condemned to deep poverty (below 80% of the poverty line).
Minimum Wage Earners
|
Poverty Line (LIM-AT – 2011)* |
Annual Earnings at Current Minimum Wage ($10.25/hr) |
Basic Income Gap
|
|
| Adult Working Full-Time (35 hrs/wk) for the Full Year | $19,719 | $18,655 | $1,064
(94.6% of LIM-AT) |
* Adjusted for inflation 2% per year, 2009 – 2011.
At the current minimum wage, an earner working full-time for the full year still does not escape poverty.
Structural Poverty in Ontario
In the last 35 years, except for a short period in the mid- 1980s to 1991, the poverty rate in Ontario has hovered between 9% to just over 12%, using the Ontario Government’s official poverty measure (Low Income Measure – After Tax) and the latest Statistics Canada low income figures.
Whether in good or bad economic times, since the recession of 1992, Ontario has struggled to stay below a double-digit poverty rate of 10% or higher.
This tells us that reducing the poverty rate to 4% or lower will require structural approaches that address the basic material living conditions of low income Ontarians.
Further, the worrying trend is the upward slope of the Ontario poverty rate when tracked by decade since the beginning of the 1990s.
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