Canada's Child Poverty (2)

Further to our previous post, 53,000 children living below the poverty line in Alberta -- and possibly more, given downturns in the economy in the past two years. The Alberta report says more than half of the children who live in poverty are from a household in which at least one person works full time year-round.
"There is a crisis for many families, but that crisis is hidden," said Bill Moore-Kilgannon, executive director of Public Interest Alberta. He helped research and write the report with the Edmonton Social Planning Council.

In Nova Scotia, the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives says 14,000 children in the province were living in poverty in 2008. The organization also says there is a growing class of working poor in Nova Scotia.

But it isn't just the young who suffer poverty.

The number of seniors living below the low-income cutoff, Statistics Canada’s basic measure of poverty, jumped nearly 25 per cent between 2007 and 2008, to 250,000 from 204,000, according to figures released on Wednesday.

The rise in poverty among seniors poses particular problems for their adult children, who will be expected to bridge financial gaps for their parents while supporting their own families. This so-called “sandwich generation” is often caught with the twin pressures of having children in higher education and parents requiring additional care for failing health, according to Laurel Rothman, co-ordinator of the Campaign 2000 report card on child and family poverty.