Two Aspirins Is Not A Remedy For Poverty

Today’s poverty reduction programs are nothing more than the “take two aspirins” solution from the 1960s. The idea that we can “fix” poverty by putting more money in the hands of the poor, while increasing their access to government services treats only the symptoms, without knowing the cause. It also assumes that government knows best – the same assumption that fostered First Nations residential schools. It wrongly assumes, as well, that all poverty is the same, all needs similar. Their assumptions are backed with statistics.

It is, however, not a poverty problem but a people issue, and while statistics are an excellent objective source for evaluating situations, people issues are subjective and individual, and are better served by an emphasis on anecdotal evidence rather than clinical, remote observation. Classifying all people living in poverty into one homogenous group misses the diversity of those in poverty, in the same way as describing all middle class people as living in suburbia, or every ache as being treatable with Aspirin. Poverty may be nothing more than a symptom, or even a buzzword without real meaning.

My wife and I, for example, live in poverty, given that the low-income before-tax cut-off for a family of two is approximately $30,000, according to Statistics Canada. Yet, we are far from poor, and choose to live a minimalist lifestyle. We still manage to drive a relatively new hybrid car, own our own home with mortgage and vacation out-of-country at least six weeks each year. We are well-educated and healthy.

A single mother from Winnipeg, “Donna,” supports three children on an income of $27,500, plus the federal child tax benefit. She, too, meets the statistical definition of living in poverty (even with the CTC), but she owns her own house, has all the household amenities that she wants, her children are well-fed, well-clothed and well-supplied and she manages to set aside a few dollars in savings each year. 

Ten provinces and territories have adopted some form of poverty reduction strategy, each developed through consultation with reams of data. With government programs emphasizing such things as increasing tax credits to the poor, providing access to social programs and ensuring living wage jobs, the provincial efforts have little relevance to the two situations cited. Ontario’s child poverty reduction program, launched in 2008, met with modest results in the first three years. Its two-pronged concept focused on income support mechanisms (from tax credits to day care support) and a youth job strategy. By 2011, child poverty rates had dropped 9%, but rose again to pre-2008 levels shortly after.

Similarly, two aspirin may alleviate a headache, back ache or muscle pain, but if the cause is a brain tumour, slipped disc or torn muscle the problems inevitably will reoccur. There are so many causes, contributors and explanations for living a life on low income that there is no bureaucratic aspirin that can even alleviate the symptom in every case.

Every major city has pockets of older housing, in which you will find seniors living “in poverty,” many there because they do not want to leave. Every part of Canada has rural communities that almost entirely exist at the low-income part of the economy, but they often do not view themselves as poor or in need. A few of us choose to live simply, frugally, including Hutterites and other religious groups with vows of poverty. Some choose occupations that have little prospect for high income but offer personal satisfaction. Then there those who do have financial need and want, but who “fall through the cracks,” such as homeless, immigrants, people with mental issues, people with temporary health issues, the poorly educated and so on.

Poverty, too, is far more than about money. Poverty is neither a class nor a definition of a lifestyle. It is a condition that is part of a complex dynamic. Persons labelled as “poor” people often have a richness that defies their circumstance. People may live in poverty, or be of low-income, but they are not of a “lower socio-economic class.” On the other hand, income poverty is only part of a web of poverties: emotional, cultural, social, psychological, physical, and so on.

I was raised in a poor rural community where very few of us felt that we were poverty-stricken. My parents taught us the value of learning and knowledge, the value of compassion, the value of diversity. Yet, there was an extreme dearth of social interaction for us, because of my mother’s psychological impairments. We grew up knowing how little money actually meant, but not knowing the value of the community around us, and how to interact on a social scale. That social poverty limited each of us. Even if social services had been available to us, my parents would have resisted. 

In our travels, I have visited with extremely poor families in central America and even the deep South USA. Many of these people are extremely happy, and extremely destitute. Their pockets are empty, their social lives full.

Some feel that the solution to the “poverty problem” is to make being poor more affordable. The Danish co-housing concept focuses on voluntary participation in a multi-housing community that shares costs, services and benefits. In Saskatoon, the long-running Quint project provides affordable housing, creates jobs, assists with money management and helps repair credit issues for aboriginal homeowners. Neither “solves” poverty, but both find ways to encourage and enable those who choose to do so to improve their social and economic condition.

Canada, we often say, is built on diversity. There is no better place to demonstrate that than to adopt an anecdotal approach to understanding that it is not a poverty problem that we face, but a people issue. And most of us poor folks would prefer that you recognize that we are financially limited, not impoverished. The two are worlds apart. Perhaps approaching low-income issues with that in mind will alleviate the headache that is poverty.