Trudeau’s Scattershot Spending Sends Child Poverty to New Lows
- Rate fell to 4.7% in 2020 as government aid supported incomes
- But data show benefits were tilted to higher earning families
Kindergarten students arrive at a Toronto school in September 2020..
Photographer: Cole Burston/BloombergThis article is for subscribers only.
Child poverty fell to near record lows in Canada during the pandemic, but additional data provided to Bloomberg suggest that while generous government benefits offset income losses in poorer families, higher earning households received more.
The number of Canadians under 18 who live in poverty fell by more than half to 324,000 in 2020, Statistics Canada reported Wednesday. Since Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was elected in 2015, the number of children and teenagers living below the poverty line has fallen by 780,000. The proportion living in poverty, meanwhile, dropped to 4.7%, one of the lowest rates on record.