EXCERPTS:
Canada falls below most of its international peers when it comes to fighting child poverty, says a new report by the United Nations Children’s Fund being released Tuesday.
With a child poverty rate of 13.3 per cent, Canada ranks 24th out of
35 industrialized nations, behind the United Kingdom, Australia, New
Zealand and most of northern Europe, says the UNICEF report.
Overall, the Netherlands and Nordic countries have the lowest rates
of child poverty, hovering at about 7 per cent, almost half Canada’s
rate. Meantime, the United States and some of the southern European
countries have the highest. (Iceland has the lowest child poverty rate
at 4.7 per cent and Romania has the highest at 25.5 per cent. The U.S.
rate is 23 per cent.)
When it comes to the size of the gap between child poverty and a nation’s overall poverty rate, Canada fares somewhat better at 18 out of 35, the report notes.
However, Canada’s child poverty rate is still almost two percentage
points higher than the country’s overall poverty rate of 11.4 percent.
In the wake of the 2008 economic crisis, there has been little
attention paid to child poverty, says the report, which defines child
poverty as those living in families with disposable incomes of less than
50 per cent of the national median income.
“Because children have only one opportunity to develop normally in
mind and body, the commitment to protection from poverty must be upheld
in good times and in bad.” it says. “A society that fails to maintain
that commitment . . . is a society that is failing its most vulnerable
citizens and storing up intractable social and economic problems for the
years immediately ahead.”
In a companion report, UNICEF Canada
notes that the country’s tax and transfer policies are moderately
effective compared to other affluent countries. Canada’s relative child
poverty rate before taxes and benefits is 24.1 per cent, close to the
U.S. rate of 25.1 per cent. But after taxes and transfers, the rate in
Canada drops by almost a half while the U.S. rate remains unchanged, the
report says.
“The good news from this is that when we invest in things like early
childhood education, when we invest in early health care, when we
invest in helping the most vulnerable children . . . it makes a
difference,” said UNICEF Canada President David Morley.
However, Canada could do more. Ottawa invests $40.4 billion in
benefits to seniors, close to three times the $13.2 billion it invests
in children, the report says. As a result, seniors’ poverty has declined
to 6.3 per cent.
“There is no excuse not to apply the same determination to reduce child poverty as we have for our elderly,” Morley says.
UNICEF Canada recommends Ottawa make children a budget priority and
live up to its UN commitment to give them “first call” on the nation’s
resources.
Specifically, it calls on the federal government to increase the
Child Tax Benefit to at least $5,000 a year from the current $3,485
maximum and index it to inflation. Parents with children under age 18 should also be allowed to retain more earned income from the Working
Income Tax Benefit and Employment Insurance, the report adds.
The agency also wants Ottawa to adopt an official poverty measure and
develop a strategy to eliminate child poverty, starting with a target
of five per cent, the lowest rate in the industrialized world.
- reprinted from Toronto Star