Ending child poverty: the time is now

November 18, 2024

It’s been 35 years since the federal government promised to uphold children’s rights by ratifying the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and eradicate child poverty by the year 2000 by passing a unanimous resolution in the House of Commons.

Campaign 2000 is commemorating this day with the release of their suite of national, provincial, territorial and Toronto child and family poverty report cards.

The national report card, Ending Child Poverty: The Time is Now found that in the last two years, Canada experienced record increases in the rates of child and family poverty, of nearly 5 percentage points total. That means an additional 360,000 children fell into poverty – in total, nearly 1.4 million children were living in poverty in 2022 or roughly one in five children.

The jump in poverty rates in 2021 was the first increase in 10 years and the latest increase in 2022 was the largest on record, signaling a failure of the federal poverty reduction strategy to sustain progress made with the Canada Child Benefit and the temporary emergency pandemic benefits. Across all family types, families were living in deeper poverty than they were in 2015, the year the federal poverty reduction strategy measures progress from. Custom data shows that the Canada Child Benefit has lost its power to sustain poverty reduction and that income inequality among families with children is widening.

Available data continue to show that children from systemically marginalized groups experience significantly disproportionately high poverty rates resulting from historic and present colonialism, systemic racism, ableism and intersecting systemic inequities.

Ending Child Poverty: The Time is Now is a call to action. It includes 58 bold but achievable community-driven recommendations spanning social and economic equity, income security, decent work, housing, childcare, public health and more. It is the last report card that will be released before the next federal election, and all federal parties have an opportunity to lay out their plan to stem the rise of poverty in our communities and in our families and work towards eradicating it once and for all. It is possible, and the time is now.

Key Findings from the 2024 National Report Card:

Nearly 1.4 million children live in poverty in Canada, or roughly 1 in 5 children.
From 2021 to 2022, the child poverty rate rose by 2.5 percentage points, the largest annual increase in child poverty on record (+195,170 children).
Families are living in deeper poverty. On average, family incomes fell $14, 276 below the low income measure, after tax in 2022 compared to $10,050 in 2015.
Child poverty increased in every province and territory. The highest increase for children under 18 was in Nunavut (+6 percentage points) and among the provinces in Ontario (+3.5 percentage points).
More than 110,000 families with children fell into poverty in 2022.
Nearly all children (99%) under 18 years old who do not live in families live in poverty.
Nearly one in two children (45%) growing up in lone-parent families live in poverty.
The Canada Child Benefit (CCB) is losing effectiveness. On average, it reduced child poverty by 8.8 percentage points annually. In 2022, it reduced child poverty by 7.8 percentage points, the lowest reduction to date.
In 2019, the Minister of Disability inclusion was given a mandate to double the amount of the Child Disability Benefit. To date, there has been no movement in this urgent area.
Poverty rates for First Nations, Inuit and Métis children remain significantly higher than rates for non-Indigenous children. Ending poverty for First Nations, Inuit and Métis children and families depends on realizing their rights to their traditional lands, territories and resources.
Racialized and immigrant children experience disproportionately high rates of child poverty due to systemic racism, discrimination and barriers to services and employment.
There is wide income inequality among families with children. The after-tax average income for families with children in the top 10% was 18 times higher than the average income of those in the bottom 10%.
Addressing intersectional and systemic discrimination with poverty reduction initiatives is essential to reducing the high poverty rates experienced by children from disproportionately marginalized groups.
New investments are needed, including broadening access to the CCB, creating a new End Child Poverty Supplement for those in low income, and ensuring adequacy of the CCB children’s disability benefit.
Establishment of a standard $0-$10 a day per family sliding scale fee model of childcare to enable access for families in poverty is needed. Canada’s universal childcare plan must include low income children.