Deserving and undeserving poor

[M.Dancer]

On to our seniors, yes many are living in object poverty. These are the brave souls that worked, in some cases 60 years, to pay for all the social programs that exists today and we expect them to live on a combined paultry sum of less than a 1000 dollars a month.

I'm having difficulty understaning how a senior who have worked, in some cases 60 years, is living on less than $1000/month. CPP was enacted in 1966, so presumaby they have 40+ years of contribution to CPP, in addition to OAS and GIS. Please explain.

I think the reason may be some seniour retired in 1976......with only 10 years of payments.......still though, to not save for your retirement.....very british of them

[bush_cheney2004]

And your assertion is based on what exactly?

Here's a few facts: A women with two children gets 2100 a month (combined baby bonus and GST with welfare) in NS. She can receive this benefit until she can't pop out more illigitimate babies, roughly 18 plus years per child.

The assertion is based on published poverty rates for demographic groups at StatsCanada. Children, not their "Ho Mothers", seem to do particularly poorly in British Columbia.

[Mad_Michael]

If you categorize income by age in Canada, seniors (over 65) are second only to the 55-64 bracket, which has always been the highest.

The average senior citizen in Canada is doing better than the average working Canadian.

Though, if the past is any guide, everything is not enough to satisfy this greedy segement of our society.

[White Doors]

Though, if the past is any guide, everything is not enough to satisfy this greedy segement of our society

My, what a large paintbrush you have.

[margrace]

Though, if the past is any guide, everything is not enough to satisfy this greedy segement of our society

My, what a large paintbrush you have.

My how I wish I could see some of that supposed income. But my needs are small and I spend my time with the Palliative Care and Food Bank organizations. I don't have time to spend my mythical money.

[Naci Sey]

None of us are telling anyone how to live. We are simply fed up with supporting poor life choices. People can do whatever they want, but they should have to deal with the full consequences of their actions, instead of asking for a handout.

Let us suppose, for the sake of argument, that every person living in poverty in Canada (however you want to define poverty) is a lazy, no-good, so-and-so whose circumstances are indeed due to their "poor life choices."

Whether we like it or not, if the present state of affairs is not addressed, then shelters will continue to proliferate and be used to temporarily house an increasing number of homeless people. These shelters will be funded by our tax dollars, either directly from government or indirectly through subsidies to and exemptions for charitable organizations - even in Dickens' time, there were the poor houses.

In a recent report (PDF, 2.6 MB), the author Gordon Laird cites government numbers showing a cost of up to $6 billion a year to service a core homeless population of 150,000. That cost includes health care, criminal justice, social services and emergency shelter costs. Laird also cites studies demonstrating that providing low-cost housing for this core group would reduce the cost to taxpayers considerably.

Isn't that one of the bottom lines for so-cons? That less tax dollars be spent?

NB: I don't accept the report in its entirety. For example, it's customary for researchers, mortgage lenders and landlords to use 30% for the maximum amount of household income that should be applied to housing. While 30% makes sense to me for the lowest decile of household income, it seems too low for higher incomes. This is one case, where I think a relative measure should be used.

[ScottSA]

None of us are telling anyone how to live. We are simply fed up with supporting poor life choices. People can do whatever they want, but they should have to deal with the full consequences of their actions, instead of asking for a handout.

Let us suppose, for the sake of argument, that every person living in poverty in Canada (however you want to define poverty) is a lazy, no-good, so-and-so whose circumstances are indeed due to their "poor life choices."

Whether we like it or not, if the present state of affairs is not addressed, then shelters will continue to proliferate and be used to temporarily house an increasing number of homeless people. These shelters will be funded by our tax dollars, either directly from government or indirectly through subsidies to and exemptions for charitable organizations - even in Dickens' time, there were the poor houses.

In a recent report (PDF, 2.6 MB), the author Gordon Laird cites government numbers showing a cost of up to $6 billion a year to service a core homeless population of 150,000. That cost includes health care, criminal justice, social services and emergency shelter costs. Laird also cites studies demonstrating that providing low-cost housing for this core group would reduce the cost to taxpayers considerably.

Isn't that one of the bottom lines for so-cons? That less of tax dollars be spent?

NB: I don't accept the report in its entirety. For example, it's customary for researchers, mortgage lenders and landlords to use 30% for the maximum amount of household income that should be applied to housing. While 30% makes sense to me for the lowest decile of household income, it seems too low for higher incomes. This is one case, where I think a relative measure should be used.

Did you know that Japan cut its welfare rolls in half by adding stringent guidlines to welfare? And did it without even one person starving? Your solution of making poverty comfortable simply draws more people into the lifestyle.

Your assumption that not providing more beds for homeless people is going to lead to more homeless people makes no more sense than your implicit assumption that providing more beds will lessen the demand for them. Why does the left have such a hard time with basic economic principles?

[Mad_Michael]

In the Quebec gets lion's share of Canada Day, the discussion looked to be getting derailed when I introduced suggestions on how else the $6.75 million might be spent; so I've started this thread.

Are you familiar with recent studies suggesting that 'relative' poverty has a far greater 'psychic' effect than absolute poverty?

If this is true, you can NEVER eliminate poverty, since compared with the top 2%, everyone is relatively poor. And these people are waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay more politically powerful than the actual 'absolute' poor.

And one of the reasons 'absolute' poor people are poor is that they lack the wealth to prevent poverty-penalties from being passed into law. Most other groups in society are very efficient and effective in preventing penalty-laws being applied to them.