Poverty In Canada

The major objection from the Neanderthals of the far right to the figures Campaign 2000 uses is that they are based on Statistic Canada's Low Income Cutoffs. O.K., let's go with them on this and instead turn to the most common of all poverty measurements, the one employed by the OECD, the United Nations and the EU countries, that is the percentages of the population living below 50% of median income. Now let's turn to the latest Human Development Report (2003) from the United Nations. Following are the figures for the period 1990 to 2000, that is the percentage of the population living below the income poverty line (includes all forms of income). Slovakia 2.1% Luxembourg 3.9% Czech Republic 4.9% Finland 5.4% Sweden 6.6% Hungary 6.7% Norway 6.9% Germany 7.5% Belgium 8.0% France 8.0% Netherlands 8.1% Slovenia 8.2% Poland 8.6% Denmark 9.2% Switzerland 9.3% Spain 10.1% Austria 10.6% Japan 11.8% Ireland 12.3% United Kingdom 12.5% Estonia 12.3% CANADA 12.8% Israel 13.5% Italy 14.2% Australia 14.3% United States 17% So, there we are, in a list of 26 "High Human Development Countries", Canada is way down in 22nd place. It's been interesting to note how, in their attacks against Campaign 2000's latest reports, the anti-poor have chosen to ignore the new Market Basket measure of poverty, years in development, which puts the poverty rate in Canada at 13.1% One last point. If it wasn't so sad, it would be highly amusing to compare the OFFICIAL poverty rates in the U.S.A. with reality. The U.S. measurement of poverty is so out of date, so ludicrous at 12.4% that no one except Americans and our own radical right pays attention when Washington publishes its annual poverty report. One recent OECD report said that among OECD countries only Mexico at 26.2% had a higher child poverty rate than the U.S. at 23.2% (Canada was at 14.2%). Mel Hurtig