1 in 6 children were living in poverty on P.E.I. in 2022, report suggests

P.E.I. had the fourth-lowest child poverty rate in Canada in 2022, but the authors of the latest child and family report card for the province say that is no reason to celebrate.

They say that in 2022, the most recent year for which statistics are available, 16.8 per cent of all Island children were living in poverty, or one in six.

Nationally, about 18.1 per cent of children were living in poverty.

The other Atlantic Provinces — Newfoundland and Labrador, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia — stood at 21.4, 21.9 and 23.8 per cent, respectively. Yukon and Quebec were tied with the lowest rate at 12 per cent, while Nunavut's rate of 41.8 per cent was the highest.

Christine Saulnier, who helped prepare the report, said that despite the fact that P.E.I. is better off than the national average, its poverty rate is still too high. 

She noted that the poverty rate is even higher for children under age six on P.E.I., at 17.5 per cent. As well, 39 per cent of children in lone-parent households on the Island are living in poverty.

"The concern with a higher poverty rate for very young children is that families are struggling much, much more with younger children, and that likely is because they've chosen to take maternity or end parental leave," said Saulnier. "Our maternity and parental leave, which is through our employment insurance system, is not very generous."

The statistics, based primarily on tax filer data, suggest that P.E.I.'s child poverty rate increased by 12 per cent between 2021 and 2022.

Overall, there were 26,350 people on P.E.I. living in poverty in 2022, of whom 5,000 were children and 5,450 were seniors.

The report says that without the federal Canada Child Benefit, the poverty rate for Island children would be much higher — 27.7 per cent.

"That really signals that those transfers make a difference, they do reduce poverty," said Saulnier, the director of Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives in Nova Scotia.

Here are some other notable statistics from the report:

• Child poverty in rural communities ranged from a high of 300 children, or 25.6 per cent, in Lower Montague to a low of 20 children, or 10 per cent, in Richmond.
• Charlottetown had 8,630 children living in poverty, or 21.4 per cent of the city's children.
• Summerside had 3,240 of its children living in poverty, or 17.1 per cent.
• Stratford had 1,310 children in poverty, or 11.6 per cent.
• P.E.I.'s poverty rate for racialized people of all ages was 16.6 per cent, compared to 13.1 per cent for non-racialized communities.
• Indigenous people made up 23.4 per cent of all people on P.E.I. living in poverty.
• P.E.I. had the highest rate of food insecurity among children in the country at 41 per cent, an increase of 61 per cent from 2020. That measures the lack of access to affordable, nutritious food.

The report acknowledges it may seem perplexing that P.E.I. has the highest rate of food insecurity while its poverty rate is below the national average.

"While low income is the strongest predictor of food insecurity, other factors that create financial constraints within households, such as debt payments, budget shocks… or having few protective assets such as savings, can lead to food insecurity," it says.

The report recommends that governments set targets and a timeline to eliminate poverty. Among the suggestions are investing to expand affordable child care, taking further steps to control rent increases and build more social housing, increasing the minimum wage to $20 an hour and enhancing employment insurance benefits.