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Wednesday, October 07, 2015

Toronto Inequality

Canada’s largest city, Toronto, has the “dubious distinction of being Canada’s capital of working poverty. Fewer than half of workers in the GTHA have full-time permanent employment with benefits. More than 50 per cent are working in temporary, part time or other less-secure jobs. Data from a study in April that found that couples with children must make at least $18.52 an hour each to make ends meet in Toronto.
"The provincially calculated minimum wage of $11 an hour leaves workers far below the poverty line," it said.

The concentration of poverty is growing, with the income divide between neighbourhoods up 96 per cent from 1980 to 2010. It found the highest levels of working poverty are in Scarborough and North York, while poverty has decreased in the area south of Bloor-Danforth. Outside of the city, working poverty grew by 26 per cent in Markham, 22 per cent in Brampton and 21 per cent in Richmond Hill.

Nearly half of Toronto residents live in "low-income" neighbourhoods, while 21 per cent live in high-income areas and 30 per cent live in middle-income areas. The low income cut-off is estimated based on data from Statistics Canada in 2013. Tuesday's report showed that, of low-income earners, the median income is $14,930. The median total annual family income of the Toronto region is estimated at $72,830, nearly $50,000 more than half of low-income earners are making.

The income gap between the richest one per cent and the remaining 99 is now the second-biggest in Canada. Toronto's top earners share 17.4 per cent of all income earned in the area. The Toronto region is second to Calgary, where income earners in the top one per cent share 25.1 per cent of all annual income.
The report found that the richest one per cent share:
12.3 per cent of all wealth in Vancouver
10.4 per cent in Montreal
8.1 per cent in Regina
7.3 per cent in Halifax
10.3 per cent across Canada

The number of visits to food banks is again on the rise after an encouraging drop in 2013. In 2014, there were 890,000 visits to city food banks. Since 2008, there’s been a 45 per cent increase in food-bank use in the city’s inner suburbs. Almost 12 per cent of seniors living in Toronto are below the poverty line


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