Women and Poverty

In this section:

• Women and Poverty in Manitoba
  
• Women and Global Poverty
  
• Women, Poverty and Social Assistance
• Women, Poverty and Minimum Wage

Social assistance (welfare) is a system created to protect people from poverty. But how successful is this government service?

Though Canada does not have an official poverty line, Statistics Canada Low-Income Cut-Off (LICO) is frequently used to define poverty. LICO has not been adjusted since 1992 and is therefore much lower than it should be. Statistics Canada has stated that they do not intend to update LICO in the future. Other forms of measuring poverty such as the Low Income Meausre (LIM) and the Market Basket Measure (MBM), are also used when crunching income statistics. Each represents a different way of measuring whether people have money to pay for what they need. An example of how measurements can be used differently was given by the Social Planning Council of Winnipeg (SPC) during a 2009 poverty measurement workshop. After the SPC released a Report Card on Child and Family poverty in Manitoba and called for an increase in social assistance rates, two Manitoba cabinet ministers responded publicly. Rather than announcing more support for low income parents, they simply cut child poverty in half by using a different measurement of poverty, the MBM.¹

	Before Tax Low-Income Cut Off (urban)	Social Assistance Rates plus rent and utilities (Winnipeg)	Acceptable Living Level (pre-tax) in Winnipeg
Family of 1	$22,229	$6,911	$15,430
Family of 2 (1 adult, 1 child)	$27,674	$9,636	n/a
Family of 3 (1 adult, 2 children)	$34,022	$12,233	$33,471
Family of 4 (2 adults, 2 children)	$41,307	$13,670	$36,996
Family of 4 (1 adult, 3 children)	$41,307	$14,222	n/a

Source: Statistics Canada Before Tax Low Income Cut-Offs (1992 base) Chart from 2010. Acceptable Living Level (ALL) prepared by the Social Planning Council of Winnipeg 2003. Social assistance rates current as of 2010. Rates vary for families depending on the ages of the child(ren) and type of housing, click here for more details.

What this means

If an individual or family is able to recieve the maximum amount for basic social assistance and the maximum amount for rent with heat, lights and water:

• According to LICO, a single person on social assistance falls 69% below the poverty line. According to the ALL, a single person on social assistance falls 55% below the poverty line.

• According to LICO, a family of 2 (1 adult, 1 child) on social assistance, falls 65% below the poverty-line.

• According to the LICO, a family of 4 (2 adults, 2 children) on social assistance, falls 67% below the poverty-line. According to ALL, the same family falls 63% below the poverty-line.

42.5% of social assistance recipients are single parents.

The provincial government announced a small increase of about $20/month to the social assistance rates in April 2003. This was the first increase in 10 years. There has not been an increase since.

To read what two single mothers have to say about living on social assistance visit: