TO Prosperity: Toronto Poverty Reduction Strategy

9
POVERTY IN TORONTO –
THREE WORRYING TRENDS
1. the struggle to make ends meet
As housing, food, energy and other costs
have risen steadily over the past decade,
it has become even more difficult for low
income residents to make ends meet.
Over the past six years, the cost of child care
rose by 30%, public transit became 36%
more expensive, and rents increased by 13%.
In 2014, for the sixth consecutive year, GTA
food banks had over one million visits, with
an increase of nearly 40% in Toronto’s inner
suburbs since 2008. i
For a family of four to meet basic expenses
of rent, food, child care, transportation, and
clothing, both parents need to work full-time
at $18/hour, which is considerably higher
than the current minimum wage. ii
2. the broken pathways
Toronto’s labour market is increasingly
polarized between high and low quality
jobs, while social and income supports are
becoming more difficult to access.
The most obvious marker of these changes
is the shift from full-time continuous
employment to precarious employment with
limited job security and few, if any, benefits.
In 1984, only 11% of Toronto’s jobs were
part-time while in 2014, the number had
more than doubled to 23%. iii At the same
time, changes made to the number of hours
needed to qualify for Employment Insurance
have restricted access to it: only 20% of
unemployed Toronto workers qualify. iv Finally,
Ontario Works rates have lost more than half
of their value since the mid-1990s, when they
were cut by 21%.
Among previous generations, there was
a broad and deeply held consensus that
if people invested in their education they
would be sure to get ahead, and that finding
a job would lift them out of poverty. The
polarization of the labour market means that
for too many Torontonians these prospects
no longer hold true.
3. poverty is systemic
There are much higher levels of poverty and a
much greater risk of poverty among specific