Poverty blights Canada's quality-of-life rating
Greetings! I’m Nico Trimoff, manager of transcription and accessibility services at www.sterlingcreations.ca.
Well, I guess you can’t have it both ways. A few weeks ago, I shared an article with you about Canada’s high ranking on its quality of life. Now here is another article that talks about its poverty.
I’ll let you be the judge of it all.
Have a great day.
Poverty blights Canada’s quality-of-life rating
Edmonton Journal , Sept. 18, 2009
Canada’s growing poverty rates are dragging down the country’s grades when
it comes to quality of life, according to an annual report card ranking the
social performance of 17 developed countries.
In the report, released Thursday by the Conference Board of Canada, the
nation ranked ninth overall, an improvement of one place over last year. It
concluded that Canada’s “middle-of-the-pack ranking means it is not living
up to its reputation or its potential.”
Driving down Canada’s score is the alarming number of children living in
poverty, as defined by the United Nations and the Organization for Economic
Co-operation and Development.
The report card gives Canada a D grade, placing it near the bottom of the
list at 15th out of 17 countries, ahead of Japan and the United States.
The top-ranked countries are Denmark, Norway, Sweden and the Netherlands.
Lead author Brenda Lafleur says the child poverty rate in Canada rose to
15.1 per cent in the mid-2000s from 12.8 per cent in the mid-1990s,
according to the latest data available from the OECD and the United Nations,
which look at poverty relative to social inclusion.
“So there are children who don’t have enough food, shelter …but then (the
data) looks at how much it costs to go to school,” she said.
“What does it mean for a kid who can’t go on a field trip or join a book
exchange or have runners to take gym? All these things add up.”
The OECD defines child poverty as the proportion of children under 17 living
in households where the disposable income is less than 50 per cent of the
median of the country.
In Canada, the median income is $63,600 for families with two or more
people. For single people it is $22,800.
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About Donna Jodhan
Donna Jodhan is an award winning blind author, advocate, sight loss coach, blogger, podcast commentator, and accessibility specialist.
