For richer and poorer
Georgia Straight
Dec 7, 2006
By Nick Rocke

EXCERPT

City faces the costs of a growing gap between haves and have-nots.... In other firsts, BC Stats reports that British Columbia - flogged by Premier Gordon Campbell as 'The Best Place on Earth' - has the worst gap between rich and poor of any province. In 2004, the average market income (total income minus income from government programs) of poor families was $8,800, compared to $147,700 for rich ones. Topped up with government income, the poor still only earned 16 percent of what the rich did. Also in 2004 - for the third year running - B.C. led the provinces in child poverty, according to a new report by BC Campaign 2000 and the First Call BC Child and Youth Advocacy Coalition. Nearly one in four kids was poor, versus one in six nationwide.

"The depth of poverty for people on income assistance, and particularly single moms, is just astoundingly shameful," First Call community mobilization coordinator Adrienne Montani tells the Straight. In 2004, poor B.C. single-parent families headed by women were an average of $11,400 below the poverty line. Among the report's recommendations: a 50-percent increase in welfare rates and an affordable public child-care system.

Want proof that the rich are getting richer while the poor get poorer?

Between 1993 and 2004, Statistics Canada data reveals, the average annual wage of the poorest 10 percent of B.C. families with children fell from $14,824 to $14,475. The richest 10 percent got a big raise: their average wage jumped 47 percent, from $143,338 to $211,195.

The middle class is also taking a hit. In its recent 2007 budget submission to the provincial government, the local office of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives noted that B.C. families had a 2004 median market income of $53,600. Adjusted for inflation, that's $300 less than in 2000, right before the B.C. Liberals came to power...

Politicians beware: average voters are anxious and resentful. Last month, the CCPA released the results of an Environics Research poll of 2,000 Canadians, half of whom said they're always a paycheque or two away from poverty. Three-quarters of respondents believed the rich-poor gap has grown since a decade ago, and 65 percent said the benefits of Canada's economic growth have gone mostly to the rich. Seventy-five percent worried that a widening gulf between rich and poor will lead to more crime and make Canada like the U.S., where gross inequality is entrenched.

As these troubling stats grab public attention, it's tempting to regard the B.C. Liberals' low profile as no coincidence. Campbell recently said the province will raise its welfare shelter allowance - now $325 a month for single recipients - for the first time since 1994. But he also cancelled the fall legislative assembly, curtailing debate over his government's other welfare policies, which discourage the needy from seeking help...

First Call's Adrienne Montani accuses the B.C. labour market of failing to provide a whole underclass of workers with a living wage, enough hours, or both. "The line often is, 'A job is better than welfare,'" says Montani, who wants the $8 provincial minimum wage raised to $10. "And that's not true for some families, particularly for single-parent families, most of whom are women."

To make things even tougher, she says, working families with low annual incomes find themselves ineligible for child-care subsidies and other benefits. "They're living in poverty compared to the actual expense of living here," Montani explains. B.C.'s Minister of Employment and Income Assistance, Claude Richmond, did not make himself available for comment.

Another question: what far-reaching effects will the rich-poor divide have on our city? Richard Wilkinson is professor of social epidemiology at the University of Nottingham medical school. His 2005 book, The Impact of Inequality: How to Make Sick Societies Healthier (The New Press), gathers together a large number of public-health studies from developed countries. The evidence is overwhelming: no matter how wealthy a society is, even a small increase in inequality causes more social dysfunction. Worst-off is the United States, the richest and most unequal of all industrialized nations. It leads its counterparts in violent crime, obesity, and teenage pregnancy and ranks about 30th worldwide in life expectancy.

After hearing some statistics about inequality in this province, Wilkinson tells the Straight that if such conditions persist, the impact may be long-term. The one in four B.C. children who is poor will have a stress-plagued family life, which in turn affects school performance and carries lifelong health consequences. "I would be very surprised if as a result of this you don't have more violence by the time these kids are in their 20s," Wilkinson adds.

Although life expectancy will continue to rise, he anticipates that increased infant mortality will be among the first health effects....