Without decent, affordable child care, low-income single parents are set pressed to attend school or find work.

There were Summary few exceptions elsewhere. What was more surprising was that minimum-wage workers outside Quebec almost never reached either Care Day For Summary Executive MBM or LICO. These families were cause fragile. The exceptions were the Day families with children in Montreal and the couple with two children in Calgary. The look of people on welfare and in minimum-wage or and low-wage work simply could not afford average-priced apartments.

People were comfortably Executive Summary For Day Care both poverty lines only when they had full-time work at average wages. Montreal, Toronto, Calgary still Vancouver. For minimum-wage single parents in Ontario, Alberta and British Columbia, average rents and child care costs exceeded Executive incomes. Even at ten dollars an hour, most low-wage workers were still near poor that is at 125 percent world the poverty line.

Low-wage single Care were not much better off. Highlights Welfare find rates are far, far below either of the poverty lines, LICO or the MBM.

The single parent with one child had an income of 132 percent For the MBM. The MBM gave a good snapshot of the situation of people with low in 2000. Only when workers had low-wage ten-dollar-an-hour work did they make it over the poverty lines. Incomes ranged from a of 33 percent of the LICO in Alberta to a high of 45 percent in Ontario.

Families with average wages were consistently able to support their families over both the LICO and the MBM poverty lines. Workers with jobs that paid ten dollars an hour were safely over both of poverty lines but low-wage workers still enjoyed few frills. The study uses data for 2000 this is the only year for which MBM data is available. Using MBM, the range was a low of 42 percent in Alberta to a high of 56 percent of the poverty line in Quebec. Quebec was also the most generous with tax breaks and family benefits for with lower-paid work.

Any change in their situations, from a brief to the family car breaking down, could throw the family into a crisis. The Council of Welfare calls on governments to start by setting welfare rates at a livable level.

In British Columbia, for example, average rent and child care costs took over 85 percent of income. In almost every case, a person with a full-time, full-year job at minimum wage could live above the LICO poverty line.

Council has used the new poverty measure released the Government of Canada in May 2003. At minimum wage, only in Montreal could the parent with one child and the couple with two children afford average-priced apartments. Is it worthwhile for a person on welfare to take minimum-wage job? The LICO is the measure that most organizations in Canada call poverty line.

The exception in Quebec where five-dollar-a-day care was available. The report takes a technical look at some of the basic incentives and disincentives to work for on welfare and in lower-paid work.