Justice: 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? | Challenges | Do Justice | Through Ministry |
Through Advocacy | More 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. 

CHALLENGES (2)

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 benefited 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)

  • About 1 in 10 children (610,000) and their families live in poverty. That's more than the population of Victoria and Kelowna combined but does not include 1 in 4 children in First Nations communities growing up in poverty.
  • Among all persons in Canada - those in families, singles and seniors - 1 in 10 live in poverty.
  • Work is not an assured route out of poverty; 1 in 3 low-income children has a parent who works full-time throughout the year and almost 400,000 adult full-time workers earn less than $10 per hour.
  • Of food bank users, over 50% are families with children. In 2010, the highest rate of of food bank use (867,948 individuals) since 1997 was reported.
  • Children are 38% of foodbank users, while only 20% of the Canada population.
  • Across Canada, self identified First Nations, Metis, and Inuit peoples account for 12% of food bank usage. This has steadily increased over the past three years.
  • There were 881,100 people working in part time jobs in October 2010 because they couldn't find full time employment, up 682,900 from two years prior. This works out to an increase of 29% in involuntary part time workers.
  • In 2008, all persons in low income in Canada accounted for 9.4% of the population, or 3,067,000 persons.
  • Low-income children are more likely to have low birth weights, asthma, type 2 diabetes and suffer from malnutrition.
  • Children in low income working families are unlikely to have benefit plans for prescription drugs, vision and dental care.

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.

DO JUSTICE...

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:

...THROUGH MINISTRY

  • 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.kleingeltink@gmail.com.
  • Explore starting an affordable housing project in your community with Habitat for Humanity

 

...THROUGH ADVOCACY

  • 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)

 

MORE LINKS & RESOURCES

Websites:

 

Books:

  • "The Irresistible Revolution: Living as an Ordinary Radical" by Shane Claiborne.* Shane is a founding member of one of a growing number of radical faith communities. His is called the Simple Way, located in a destitute neighbourhood of Philadelphia. It is a house of young believers who live among the poor and homeless. They call themselves "ordinary radicals" because they attempt to live like Christ and the earliest converts to Christianity, ignoring social status and unencumbered by material comforts.
  • "God in the Alley: Being and Seeing Jesus in a Broken World" by Greg Paul.* Paul chronicles his life as pastor of the evangelical Sanctuary Community in Toronto, which "make[s] it a priority to welcome people who have, for the most part, known only rejection and abuse."
  • "Beyond Poverty and Affluence: Toward a Canadian Economy of Care" by Bob Goudzwaard and Harry de Lange.* This is an urgent appeal for a bold new economic practice. In the face of distressing societal realities - poverty, pollution and environmental degradation, ongoing losses in both the quantity and the quality of work - the authors argue that the foundations of our local, national, and international economic order need renewal, and they provide a provocative twelve-step program for economic recovery based on an "economy of care" for the earth and its people.
  • "Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger: Moving from Affluence to Generosity" by Ron Sider. *Sider has provided statistics, history, and Biblical evidence to support his bold call for Christians of all backgrounds to be aware of and concerned about the grave economic imbalances that exist, and the consequent injustices resulting from the wealthy and resource-gobbling Western Europe, America, and Japan on the one hand, and the remainder of the developing world on the other.
  • "Poor Bashing: The Politics of Exclusion" by Jean Swanson.* The special language of poor-bashing disguises the real causes of poverty, hurts and excludes people who are poor, cheapens the labour of people who have jobs, and takes the pressure off the rich. Swanson exposes the ideology of poor-bashing in a clear, forceful style.

* Available from Chapters/Indigo at www.chapters.ca

Articles:

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Footnotes:

1  Canadian Labour Congress at http://canadianlabour.ca

2  Kairos Canada at www.kairoscanada.org

3  Campaign2000 Report Card (1989-2010) at www.campaign2000.ca/reportcards.html

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”: www.cpj.ca/en/content/faith-communities-catalysts-transformation

6 Taken from the CPJ web site: “Resources for Faith Communities” www.cpj.ca/en/content/resources-faith-communities

7  Taken from Habitat for Humanity website section for “Advocate”: http://habitat.ca/advocatec657.php