First Call released its annual report card on child poverty Tuesday.
In the report, Prince George is listed as having a child poverty rate of 19.7%. The data was gauged by 24 census tracts, in which six posted a rate between 30% and 40%. The highest rate were in areas close to downtown, with one reaching 60.6% and another at 37.9%.
The provincial average for child poverty is 20.3%, however, this number appears to be going down.
“Overall in BC there were 12,000 some odd fewer children living in poverty than the previous year in 2015 so it is gradually coming down,” said Provincial Coordinator Adrienne Montani.
It’s just very incremental or very slow. So at First Call here we’re kind of impatient to see that goal that the Province has set for itself now in its new Poverty Reduction Strategy Act that they adopted a few weeks backs in the legislature. They set a goal to reduce child poverty in BC by 50% within five years starting next January so we’d like to see that happen quickly because that’s not the rate which it’s going down right now; it’s going down about one or two percent a year.”
The report card states one in five children, or 172,550 children and youth, are growing up in poverty; and that many are growing up in deep poverty, which is listed as up to $13,000 below the poverty line.
– with files from Rebecca Kelli, My Cariboo Now
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