Walking the Line
Last night, spurred on by liquid courage... I got into my usual "talking to Americans" diatribe ...i.e. what a great country Canada is, universal healthcare, mosaic instead of melting pot, etc etc... when my panengyric commentary was interrupted by a question: How many Canadians live below the poverty line... and how does it compare to the States?
uhhhh... to be honest, I don't know...but I promised to look it up and blog about it.
And not one to go back on liquor induced promises, here are the facts:
Canada actually doesn't have a poverty line, it has low-income cut-off (LICO) - which is not a measure of poverty, but of income inequality... Okay, so then how many people live below the LICO? According to the CBC, as of 2004, 15.5 per cent of Canadians...
Now what about the States? Well according to the CIA Factbook, the 2004 estimates had 12% of Americans living below the poverty line...
...Tricky. Because then the stats/econ savy (or non-savy) part of me gets confused... I'm not sure that it's possible to compare the two, because it looks like Canada and the US aren't measuring the same things... so on first glance, it looks like the US has fewer poor people... but because Canada doesn't have a "poverty line" and I'm not sure if the methodology used to calculate the numbers are the same - so I don't think it's fair to compare.
... My knee-jerk reaction is also that I think Canada treats its poor people better... I intrinsically (not based on any indepth analysis) think that I'd rather be poor in Canada than in the States. I think that I'd have a better chance - easier access to better education, for example, and potentially better health and medical treatment...
... but I digress, the question was: Are there more poor people in Canada or the US.
I guess the answer is: I don't know. It depends on how you define poor.
posted by JJ @ 3:48 PM
15 comments
15 Comments:
Your friends at the National Post would disagree:
http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/news/archives/story.html?id=18e99d28-ecd0-443e-8ab9-01ebd223bb9a
"The statistic at the heart of the article, without which the whole argument falls apart -- the claim that 15.5% of Canadians are "mired in poverty" -- is never sourced. Why? The reason is simple: The statistic is total nonsense. As Statistics Canada itself attests, Canada doesn't have an official poverty rate or an official poverty line"
"To understand how baseless it is to rely on LICO as a measure of poverty, consider this: If every single Canadian instantly had his or her income doubled, or tripled ... or multiplied by 100 -- if every one of us became millionaires overnight, and upgraded every aspect of our lifestyles in proportion to our newfound income -- the LICO would remain completely unchanged."
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Well, as the LICO is apparently the only indicator Statistics Canada uses to try and measure this, its the only data people can use.
However.. on browsing about this, I found this:
The Organization of Economic Co-operation and Development uses another relative measure of poverty. It takes all of the after-tax incomes in a particular country and finds the income such that half the people in the country make more and half make less. That's the median after-tax income. Anyone who makes less than half of that median income is considered poor. By that measure, Canada's poverty rate in 2000 was 10.3 per cent, close to the OECD average. In the U.S., the rate was 17.1 per cent, in Mexico it was 20.3 per cent and in Denmark, it was 4.3 per cent.
So... would that be a more accurate indicator or way to reflect this?
No - because once again that is a patently absurd way of measuring poverty. Because it doesn’t. What the OECD measure you are talking about actually measures is income disparity (i.e. the spread between the rich and the poor - not how rich or poor people are).
Just as with LICO, if you gave everyone $1million in cash, Canada's "poverty rate" would still be 10.3%. But the "poorest" person in Canada would be a millionaire. They would just be relatively poorer than other people.
It is not the only measure that people can use. The proper measure would be one of "basic needs". That is, determine how much is required to actually eat, be clothed, have shelter, etc... have basic needs met. If you can't meet basic needs, then you are poor. Makes sense, right?
The Fraser Institute has done some work on this and found that the poverty rate in Canada is closer to 8%.
http://www.fraserinstitute.ca/shared/readmore.asp?sNav=pb&id=216
It did find too that it was rising a little bit in recent years from 5%. These are numbers based on reason instead of the pure spin that is put out by anti-poverty groups looking to capture headlines, politicians looking to capture votes, or newspapers looking to sell copy.
If you wanted to be a real smartass you could just say "Of course America has more poor people; they have ten times the population."
As trite as that answer is, it as close to an objective factual statement as you are likely to get. Measurements of poverty are so difficult across national boundaries that objective standards are hard to apply fairly; the best way to assess poverty in any given nation is by comparing lifestyles within that nation, not by drawning international comparisons.
Of course if I had been drinking, I probably would have just given the smart-ass answer.
Hmm, so Anonymous has used as 2 sources the National Post and the Fraser Institute; both seeking to reject the poverty rate as being too high and that everything is fine and dandy in Canada.
Pardon my skepticism when I see either one of these - the Fraser Institute in particular - being quoted as a reputable source claiming the poverty rate is actually lower then it really is up here.
If you have a problem with the reasoning behind anonymous' sources then attack it, not just the source. I don't trust them either, but that's hardly a good argument.
The problem with the LICO is that it doesn't take into account taxation measures designed to target people with low to modest income. For example, the National Child Benefit is one such tax measure.
For seniors, for example, the segment of society that has the greatest incidence of poverty, the federal government responded to the fact that in 1981, one in five seniors were living in poverty. Through public pension programs such as CPP, OAS, GIS and the supplement, today that percentage is between 5-6%.
Canada has a very decent social safety net at the beginning and end of life. Where there are some holes are in areas such as some low provincial social assistance payments, disincentives for the working poor, people who lose some non-monetary benefits when they leave SA and join/rejoin the labour force and supports for disabled individuals for example.
Very well, Peyton, my objection in brief to the Fraser Institute is they attempt to manipulate the facts to their model in an effort to downplay the poverty problem in Canada. They do that by putting out a model of poverty that is called a bare-bones approach.. and try telling us all that anything beyond that of only being able to get the bare necessities is not poverty.
Furthermore, they can tell me their "better stats" shows poverty is going down all they want, but that doesn't reflect in the anecdotal evidence you see in the major cities around Canada in the increase of usage in the food banks - or for that matter in the small towns like where I live. In my town, the United Way has been reporting their usage by families has gone up astronomically in the past 2-3 years. I know - as I've been a helper for my Church to go down to their centre with my youth group I help lead, and help pack individual hampers with food and some toys for families that might not otherwise get a present at Christmas or something good to eat, and I've been stunned in the past 2-3 years at how many more hampers they've need to keep up with families in difficulty.
The Fraser Institute and the National Post can tell me all they want from their statistics and neo-conservative models they use that these families aren't really in poverty (but "financially strained") and I can tell them they can shove it.
Lets see them put on these folks shoes (and live off their finances) and tell me then whether they think they aren't in poverty or not.
Actually M. Tribe, if you had bothered to actually read my comment, you would see that I reported that even the Fraser Institute agrees that poverty is going up in Canada. From 5% to 8% over the past few years. 3% of 32 million is almost 1 million more Canadians in poverty. That is a lot. No one is trivializing it. It is over 2.5 million Canadians living in poverty. That is a lot more food hampers, hence your personal experience.
But at least that number is not derived from made-up statistics and is based on reasoning that is defensible to a first year economics class.
"poor person in America is often better off than a wealthier person in Europe."
This is complete and utter bullshit and is not worthy of comment
What should be pointed out is this: Europeans live longer than Americans; they are taller than Americans; and judging from virtually every health indicator out there, they also are healthier than Americans.
“The Fraser Institute has done some work on this and found that the poverty rate in Canada is closer to 8%.”
The Fraser Institute once included gambling revenues as a tax so has to push back “tax freedom day”. Gambling has been called a voluntary tax, but this is ridiculous. Their “studies” are not peer reviewed; treat them for what they are, viz., corporate propaganda.
“No - because once again that is a patently absurd way of measuring poverty. Because it doesn’t. What the OECD measure you are talking about actually measures is income disparity (i.e. the spread between the rich and the poor - not how rich or poor people are).”
The fact that the Fraser Institute rejects out of any the notion that income disparity is a useful tool in when looking at poverty should tell you something. They are the only ones to do so. Every serious researcher takes it into consideration.
Anyway, it is amazing how the OECD measure predicts quite nicely the presence of large ghettoized populations with limited social mobility, poor health outcomes and exposure to violent crime in a way that, say, the American poverty line does not.
You people are all hilarious. I have yet to see anyone actually debate the argument. You seem so caught up on the messenger, that you can't seem to hear (debate, think about, conceptualize) the message to save your lives. Seriously, did the National Post and the Fraser Institute steal your girlfriend or something? Why can't you let it go?
Do you really believe that 15.5% (or approximately 1/6) Canadians are "mired in poverty"?
I have any number of friends or relatives who would have had incomes below the LICO at some point. When I was in college I would have been below the LICO. Yet none of them, nor I, considered themselves to be living in poverty.
You people are all hilarious.
"It just means that a poor American's income tends to go a little further with respect to the US cost of living."
They are better positioned to buy what health care, dental care (In many European countries dental care is part of health care), post secondary education, a home in a neighborhood free of crime and with a decent schools and transit system?
Sure guns and TVs are cheaper, but that is no consolation if what most people rank as being important to them (social mobility, decent health care, a safe place to live and enough time to spend with family and friends) are denied them. Furthermore, Americans might earn more than most Europeans, but they work like dogs to do. (Incomes are higher in places such as Denmark, Norway and Luxemburg.) Americans work more than anyone and that includes the Japanese. They work longer weeks, they have far fewer vacation days (there is no mandated vacation in the States), they have less job security and they have less chance of advancing up the social ladder.
“What does that have to do with their measure of poverty? If you wish to challenge their measure of poverty, then dissect it - don't play the fool by pointing to irrelevancies.”
Maybe past instances of fudging the numbers are not important to you, but to most people this fact is far from irrelevant.
You: “the LIM favoured by the OECD is simply an income line drawn without telling us what can be afforded.”
Me: “it is amazing how the OECD measure predicts quite nicely the presence of large ghettoized populations with limited social mobility, poor health outcomes and exposure to violent crime in a way that, say, the American poverty line does not.”
The operative work is “predicts.”
“Any measure of low income should be a predictor of social problems. I guess France's LIM predicts the existence of its banlieux.”
I hope you are not likening the situation in banlieux to the situation in US urban ghettos. That would be plain nutty. The situation in US is hundred times worse. Just look at crime. The murder rate in Paris is less than 2 per 100,0000. The murder rate in Washington DC in 2005 was 35 per 100,000. That represented 17 year low! For much of the 1990s the murder rate was around 70. In other words, for most of the past decade and half the capital of the US had a murder rate rivaled only by Bogotá, Cali, Rio, Sao Paulo, Johannesburg and Detroit. In some years it toped all.
I can not think of a single major western city outside of the US with a murder rate above 10, but in the US New York is considered a safe city because it has a murder rate of 7. LA, Chicago, Houston, Philly, Phoenix, Dallas, Las Vegas, Detroit, Indianapolis, St Louis, Jacksonville, Columbus, Memphis, Baltimore, Cleveland, Kansas City, Albuquerque, New Orleans, Atlanta, Oakland, Tulsa, Miami, and Minneapolis all had murder rates over 10 in 2002 and that list is not exhaustive.
“You should try to wrap your head around the idea that not everyone lives in a state of perpetual anxiety about the possibility of a future healthcare crisis.”
Funny I did not mention the health care system in Canada once. Anyway, you should get your ahead you’re the fact that defining poverty, despite what the Fraser Institute might say, is more involved than looking at purchasing power.
"Defining poverty is all about purchasing power."
Bullocks: there is no magical starting line: People "need" to purchase more in some countries.
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