Winnipeg Free Press Fri May 4 2007

AS the provincial parties unveil their platforms piece by piece — ensuring that each announcement is louder, flashier and more awe-inspiring than the last — we can be quite sure that one issue will be left off the agenda. Despite the fact that Manitoba continues to have one of the highest rates of child and family poverty in the country (19.2 per cent), one of the highest proportions of full-time working families who fall below the poverty line (11 per cent), and some of the lowest average weekly earnings in Canada (only Prince Edward Island and Nova Scotia are lower), the issue of poverty remains a whisper. It is as if our strategy to reduce poverty is to ignore it. Unfortunately, not talking about it has only made matters worse.

In the time of an election, what’s a lowly voter to do? All we can do is look at what has been done to this point and demand that our new government does better. We can analyze the current government’s recent “Rewarding Work” announcement meant to help low-income families and move Manitobans from welfare to work.

Unfortunately, there is no mention in this initiative about how to improve the labour market. Manitoba continues to have a higher proportion of low-wage jobs (under $10 per hour) than any province west of Quebec. In fact, low-wage employment is on the rise in Manitoba, climbing from 17.8 per cent in 2002 to 20.6 per cent in 2004. We need a government that is willing to “reward work” by ensuring that workers are paid a living wage — a wage which effectively lifts them out of poverty.

Our current government has also trumpeted its new Manitoba Child Benefit, which provides low-income Manitobans with an extra $35 a month to help with the cost of raising a child. In effect, the Manitoba Child Benefit replaces the antiquated Child Related Income Supplement Program (CRISP) which hasn’t seen a boost to its $30 per month benefit since its inception in 1981.

You don’t need to be an economist to know that $30 was worth a whole lot more in 1981 than it is today. By adding another five bucks, the government hasn’t even begun to account for inflation, never mind the real needs of low-income families in Manitoba. We need a government that understands the costs of raising a family in this province.

Welfare cuts After the welfare cuts of the 1990s and the freezing of many benefits for more than a decade, assistance levels have continually lost ground. As it stands, welfare incomes in Manitoba fall far short of the poverty line, ranging from 28 per cent to 53 per cent of the before-tax Low Income Cut Off.

We must ask our government why income assistance rates aren’t indexed to inflation in the same way that Old Age Security is, or why the shelter allowance portion of the Employment and Income Assistance program has remained frozen since 1992, while rents have increased by more than 20 per cent.

As a result, families who rely on income assistance dip into already constrained food budgets to pay for shelter, and more than 80 per cent of these families end up relying on food banks. We need a government that will immediately raise welfare rates to a livable level and index them to inflation.

All Manitobans pay the price of poverty through higher health, social services, education, and justice costs, lost human potential, labour market shortages, and the diminished productive capacity of those living in poverty. Many cuts to welfare rates and social programs in the 1990s were due to a very different political and economic landscape. With our renewed capacity to properly invest in the welfare of all Manitobans, we can spend tax dollars on those who need it most.

Wealthier Manitobans who benefit from tax cuts could instead see benefits come from savings in health, justice, and child and family service budgets and not from cutting the basic necessities of the most disadvantaged. We need a government that is willing to invest wisely now to save money down the road.

Knowing that our province will house the Canadian Human Rights Museum, we need to ask if the right to an adequate standard of living will be upheld. It’s time to stop the political posturing and start talking about a clear poverty reduction plan — one that includes real targets and effective policies regarding the creation of well-paying jobs, affordable housing, lowering school dropout, accessible and affordable child care and a living wage. We need a government that stops doing as little as it can get away with and starts doing as much as possible to make poverty history.

With the deafening roar heard from various political candidates in all parties, it’s time we stopped to listen to the quietest Manitobans — voices stifled by all the white noise.

Sid Frankel and Marianne Cerelli are with the Social Planning Council of Winnipeg.

This article was posted on Friday, May 4th, 2007 and is filed under Canadian Issues and Politics, Extra! Extra!, Poverty / Low Wages. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.