Food Insecurity & Poverty in Canada: Increasing rates

One in eight Canadian households couldn’t access sufficient food in 2011

The Canadian Press - Red Deer Advocate (July 31, 2013).

TORONTO — Food insecurity in Canada is “a serious social and public health problem,” says a new report that found nearly one in eight Canadian households couldn’t access sufficient, safe and nutritious food in 2011.

The study said 3.9 million Canadians were affected and the 330,000 households that were “severely food insecure” were worried they would run out of food before being able to afford more.

University of Toronto professor Valerie Tarasuk was lead author of the study, released last week. She said the likelihood of a household facing food insecurity rises as the income drops.

At a national level the number of people facing food insecurity is rising, she said, with 450,000 more Canadians affected in 2011 compared to 2008.

“I hadn’t expected this,” she said, adding that Newfoundland and Labrador was the only exception, and the province offers a “provocative” finding.

“We know they’ve had an aggressive poverty reduction strategy running since 2006,” she said. “I’d be very surprised if that wasn’t a big part of the story.”

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Canada — not so good on poverty, after all

Rick Goldman, (2013). National Post. 

In his column last week, Andrew Coyne used a statistical sleight of hand to portray Canada as a champion in reducing poverty. He takes the lowest point of an economic downturn (1996), compares it to today and says, “Voilà, amazing progress has been made! The percentage of people below the Low-Income Cut-off has been nearly halved, from 15.5% to 8.8 %!”

A less selective use of statistics might have noted that this LICO figure stood at 10.2% in 1989, revealing a much less impressive rate of progress than Coyne’s figures would lead us to believe.  At this rate, it will take us another 150 years to eliminate poverty in Canada.

In fairness, Coyne also acknowledges that the LICO not a “poverty line” and is virtually incomprehensible. He also concedes that, according to the Low-Income Measurement (actually the most-widely used international poverty metric), results have been “less impressive.” How much less? Well, the poverty rate is 20% higher today than in 1989, according to that yardstick (12.6% vs. 10.5%).

In fact, Stats Can started producing just such an index a few years back, known as the Market Basket Measure. So, how are we doing with that one? Well, not so hot either. By that measure, 12% of Canadians could not afford the basket in 2011, up from 10.2 % in 2007.

This dismal performance at the bottom of the income scale is but one symptom of an economic model that has not been working for low and middle income Canadians.  Earlier this year StatsCan reported that the median income of Canadians (excluding the top 1%) rose by just $400 (from $28,000 to $28,400) between 1982 and 2010. This, despite the fact that GDP per capita increased by more than 50% during that time. The top 1% did a tad better, however. Their median income rose by more than $90,000 (from $191,000 to $283,400) during that period.