 | The Working Poor
STORY
Cynthia is a single mother with two school-age kids. She has no family members in the community where she lives. Cynthia has some experience as a secretary from before she was married and had her children; however, since her divorce, she has been working a minimum wage job at McDonalds. Without childcare available, this job gives her the flexibility to get her kids off to school, go to work, and then be
home for them again after school. But her $9.00/hour wage, with a 6 or 7 hour day, is not enough to cover her family’s basic living expenses for food and rent. At times she relies on the food bank to make ends meet. Her kids often have to skip school trips because there is not enough money for the additional costs of the trip.
In your community, you may encounter people who are poor enough to need to use the local food bank or to request help from your church, but you may be surprised that they are actually working full-time.
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Who are the Working Poor? | The Challenges | Justice Issue | Ministry Opportunities | Advocacy Opportunties | Further Links & Resources
WHO ARE THE WORKING POOR?1
In Canada today, paid work is no guarantee of an adequate family income. Insecure forms of work and low hourly wages in many jobs help explain why more than half of all working-age families living in poverty today belong to the working poor. They are working and depend on wages rather than social assistance but do not have an above-poverty-line income.
THE CHALLENGES
A single person must work full-time hours for a full-year for about $10 per hour to reach a poverty-line income (as defined by Statistics Canada’s pre-tax low income line). Those with children must earn even more since child benefits fall short of meeting the costs of raising children. Single parent families and single adults are particularly vulnerable to poverty even while working, since they depend on only one wage.
Those Canadian workers who have an hourly wage below $10 do not earn enough. They represent 25% of all Canadian workers, 20% of adult women workers age 25-54, and about 10% of adult male workers.
Recent studies have shown that the percentage of low-wage workers in Canada has not fallen over the past 25 years, and that real (inflation-adjusted) wages have stagnated since the early 1980s for the entire bottom half of the workforce.
In other words, fully half of the workforce, the bottom half, have not benefitted from economic growth for about 25 years. A very large share of the income gains from economic growth have gone to very high income earners. One person in every 10,000 now earns 3% of all earned income, an average of $2.5 million per year, up from $1.1 million in 1990.
As previously mentioned, in order to earn a poverty-line income, someone must work full-time, full-year at about $10 per hour. But many low-wage workers, especially female workers and disabled people, do not get those kinds of hours and work part-time, or in an interrupted series of full-time jobs? Often they will fail to qualify for unemployment insurance benefits. (Since 1989, the average Canadian family classified as “low income” has had to subsist on $9,000 less than the poverty line.2)
Low wages and insecure work also help explain why it is so difficult for many people to permanently leave social assistance for work. This is especially true when it is taken into account that a low-wage job has to replace not just income benefits, but also the extra costs of working, some support for drug costs, and often support for housing. Even if affordable child care is available, low wages create a huge barrier between welfare and work, even when welfare benefits are extremely low.
More on the Working Poor:3
- Poverty among young families grew by 31% in the past 20 years.
- More than half of families with parents under 25 live below the poverty line.
- Single mothers under 25 have a poverty rate of 78%.
- Families with disabled children are five times more likely to have low incomes.
- 1-in-5 rental households pays more than 50% of its income on rent.
- Nearly 2-in-5 jobs are now “non-standard” (part-time, self-employment, or temporary).
- Children make up 40% of food bank users.
- 50% of low-wage workers have at least some post-secondary education.
- Nowhere in Canada does minimum wage provide a “living wage” –the lowest wage on which a person can afford a reasonable standard of living without undue hardship.
As a result, the working poor face challenges relating to paying their rent and monthly bills, finding affordable child care, managing work-related costs such as transportation and clothing, paying for prescription drugs, and being able to pay for extra-curricular activities for their children.
JUSTICE ISSUE: Poverty in the midst of plenty is a fundamental injustice.
Sociological studies are demonstrating that societies with wider gaps between rich and poor experience higher levels of violence, poorer health for all, lower levels of trust and community participation, as well as higher levels of racism and sexism.4 Patterns such as these can open our eyes to the ways that we’ve structured society so that it benefits the rich by giving privileged access to limited social goods, and marginalizes the poor by denying access. Patterns such as these reveal that poverty is a type of violence.5
For Christians, reducing poverty is an important part of the biblical call to do justice. The Bible speaks often God’s concern for the poor and oppressed and God’s vision of a society without poverty. Poverty undermines the dignity of human beings created in the image of God. This is a significant challenge to Christians to engage in working for a society that reflects God’s vision: a society in which all people can flourish and fulfill their callings, contributing to the common good.6
DMC wants to encourage a comprehensive community ministry model which incorporates justice and advocacy into actions addressing poverty and the working poor. When we meet persons like Cynthia or others who are the working poor it would be easy to simply respond with charity. We could support the local food bank, the winter clothing drive, or help a family pay the rent or utilities. And in many situations we should respond in these ways.
However, DMC wants to encourage you to pursue wider action. For the working poor, we also suggest seeking opportunities for the following:
MINISTRY OPPORTUNITIES
- Explore poverty reduction from a faith perspective in your church community (see the Citizens for Public Justice website for small group resources).
- Find out whether a NeighbourLink program exists in your community, and, if so, promote it within your congregation. If not, investigate starting a NeighbourLink program, which engages church volunteers to respond to needs not met through existing social services.
- Talk to the leaders in your church about doing a Community Opportunity Scan to determine how your church might best respond to a local need like a community kitchen or a community garden program.
- Invite a Habitat for Humanity representative to speak at your church to increase awareness and engage your congregation in HH building projects.
- Investigate and create opportunities for childcare in your community.
- Create a free clothing exchange program in your community.
- Investigate an alternative to Food Banks called “Operation Sharing” involving distribution of food “gift cards” to participants, allowing them to purchase their basic food needs at the grocery store with dignity. For more details contact John Klein-Geltink at john_kg@canoemail.com.
- Explore starting an affordable housing project in your community with Habitat for Humanity
ADVOCACY OPPORTUNITIES
- For someone like Cynthia, find an employer who will provide a better paying position at suitable hours.
- Ask a landlord to help someone with housing.
- As an employer, create and endorse a “living wage” for your employees.
- Assist single parents in your congregation/neighbourhood in practical ways and allow them to respond with in-kind assistance where possible ex. baby-sitting in exchange for transportation support or child tutoring.
- Ask the local school board to create a free after school program for children whose parents must work.
- Ask your municipality for subsidized summer camp programs for families in low income brackets.
- Learn about which subsidized benefits might exist in your community.
- Talk to local residents to gain their support for affordable housing projects.
- Visit the www.campaign2000.ca to learn about advocacy opportunities for ending child and family poverty in Canada.
If you would like to take political action:
- Visit the Citizens for Public Justice web site to find out about the “poverty reduction strategy” for Canada.
- Write or visit with your local Member of Parliament and ask for their commitment to work towards a federal poverty reduction strategy announcement in Budget 2009.
- During an election campaign, ask your candidates about their vision for a Canada without poverty. Share with them the importance of seeking justice for the marginalized and dignity for the impoverished; and follow up with your newly-elected Member of Parliament.
- During an election campaign, ask your local political candidate, “What are you doing to make the dream of home ownership more attainable for low income families in your community and across Canada?”7
FURTHER LINKS AND RESOURCES
Websites:
Explore poverty reduction from a faith perspective in your church
community. Available from the Citizens for Public Justice website at
www.cpj.ca are
- CPJ’s Envisioning Canada without Poverty campaign
www.canadawithoutpoverty.ca
- National Council of Welfare – in particular see Solving Poverty
www.ncwcnbes.net
- Kairos: Canadian Ecumenical Justice Initiatives
www.kairoscanada.org
Books:
- The Irrestistible Revolution: Living as an Ordinary Radical by Shane Claiborne, Harper Collins Canada, January 2006.
- God in the Alley: Being and Seeing Jesus in a Broken World by Greg Paul, Shaw Books, December 2004.
- Beyond Poverty and Affluence: Towards an Economy of Care by Bob Goudzwaard and Harry de Lange, University of Toronto Press, 1994.
- Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger: Moving from Affluence to Generosity by Ron Sider, Thomas Nelson Publishers, May 2005.
- A Covenant to Keep: Meditations on the Biblical Theme of Justice by James W. Skillen, The Centre for Public Justice, 2000.
- Poor Bashing: The Politics of Exclusion by Jean Swanson, Between the Lines, 2001.
- Shalom Seekers Office of Social Justice and the Public Justice Resource Centre, Canadian Edition, 2003
Articles:
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Footnotes:
1 Taken from the Speaking Notes “Raising Living Standards for the Working Poor: Issues and Solutions” by Andrew Jackson, National Director Social and Economic Policy, Canadian Labour Congress: http://canadianlabour.ca/updir/05-06-AJ-niagarasarcpresentation.pdf
2 Taken from the Kairos web site: “The Kairos Anti-poverty program” (PDF)
3 Taken from the Campaign2000 web site: “A Living Wage for Families” (PDF)
4 Richard Wilkinson, The Impact of Inequality (New York, NY: The New Press, 2005), pp.36-53.
5 Taken from the Citizens for Public Justice (CPJ) web site: “Faith Communities: Catalysts for Transformation”: http://www.cpj.ca/en/content/faith-communities-catalysts-transformation
6 Taken from the CPJ web site: “Resources for Faith Communities” http://www.cpj.ca/en/content/resources-faith-communities
7 Taken from Habitat for Humanity website section for “Advocate”: http://habitat.ca/advocatec657.php
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