BECAUSE POVERTY HURTS EVERYONE
Reality: the gini coefficient is going up in industrialized nations, including Canada. Something isn't working.
Reality: the gini coefficient is going up in industrialized nations, including Canada. Something isn't working.
- Poverty forces up our tax bills, depresses the economy, increases health care cost and breeds alienation and crime
- A study guided by leading economists, estimates that poverty costs this country over $30 billion annually. With $7.5 billion dollars a year in health care costs alone and between $8 and $13 billion in lost productivity (Ontario Association of Food Banks)
- The poorest quarter of Canadians use twice the health care services as those in the wealthiest quarter
- Millenials are the first generation to be worse off then their parents
- When children are poor, it's usually because their mother's are poor
- Poverty makes children sick. Poor children have more speech and hearing problems, and score lower on cognitive tests.
- A report by the Canadian Chamber of Commerce said that in order to address the coming labour shortages because of an aging population, we need to tap into underutilized segments of our society which are also the groups overrepresented in poverty
- Precarious work can cause significant stress due to job insecurity, the pressure of holding multiple jobs, irregular or long hours, insecure visa status and lack of legal protections. Studies consistently link precarious employment to negative physical and mental health outcomes