Report: 1 in 5 single, working-age adults in Canada lives below the poverty line

Single working-age adults are experiencing the highest rates of poverty in Canada, according to a new study.

“Sounding the Alarm: The Need to Invest in Working-Age Single Adults” pushes back against the notion that a job is a pathway out of poverty.

The survey, done by Community Food Centres Canada (CFCC), highlights ongoing concerns about food insecurity.

It found that 22 per cent of working-age single adults live below Canada’s poverty line.

That’s nearly three times higher than the national average.

“Canadian households are being financially attacked, essentially,” said Sylvain Charlebois, director of the Agri-Food Analytics Lab at Dalhousie University.

Working-age single adults represent half of the 1.8 million Canadians living in deep poverty and have an average annual income of $11,700. According to the report, the low-income threshold is $25,252 for a single-adult household.

Charlebois says food will cost an average family of four $16,000 this year.

“At the grocery store, well, you're looking at an inflation rate of nine to 10 per cent.. So an average household will likely have to spend over $1,000 to feed itself for the next 12 months,” said Charlebois.

He says that’s more than last year.

“That's a significant shift. It's a lot of pressure,’ said Charlebois.

Working-age single adults make up about 40 per cent of all food-insecure households in Canada.

“We're seeing more people working, visiting food banks all over the country, and that is something that we were seeing before, but not to that extent,” said Charlebois, who is on the board of Second Harvest in Toronto, the largest food bank in Canada.

Advocates blame inadequate income support programs and a labour market riddled with low wages and few benefits.

“We urgently need a national solution that responds to the realities that people are voicing in this report. If Canada is serious about making life equitable for everyone, then we need to find the political will to create income policies that take people out of poverty – not for a week, or a month, but for good," said CFCC’s CEO Nick Saul.

Experts would like to see the existing Canada Workers Benefit be enhanced into a refundable tax credit, which would ensure that working-age single adults living in poverty would receive the supplement, regardless of their role in the labour market.

“That would provide targeted income support to this group of people to help them address the cost of living, but also address the barriers to getting back into the labor market,” said Sherri Hanley, the director of policy and community action for CFCC.

Hanley says British Columbians in particular are feeling the financial squeeze.

“In B.C., for example, you get $914 a month from the B.C. government for social assistance. And in Vancouver, a one bedroom apartment might cost you over $2,200. How do you make ends meet?” Hanley asked.

She hopes the report will change society’s perception of who is struggling and why.

“Your fast food outlet, or the person who might be cleaning your house, or someone who's sitting next to you on the bus--they are spending their time in foodbanks and working hard. Probably working harder that a lot of other people who are making decent money,” said Hanley.

While society has long prioritized seniors and families, Hanley says the survey is an indication that other groups need help too.

“I think we need to shift our perspective and realize that working-age people, as much as they’re working age and can work, the labor market has shifted and isn’t the safest stable place anymore, and this group is equally deserving of support.”