Child poverty declining in N.S., but thousands at risk without government help: report

Without major and sustained intervention by the Nova Scotia government the number of children living in poverty will remain in the tens of thousands, according to a new report.

The Nova Scotia office of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives released its 2025 report card on child and family poverty Wednesday. While there are improvements from the previous year, the report says there remain significant gaps facing the poorest families in the province.

Taxfiler income data for 2023 show a 4.6 per cent decrease in child poverty, but more than 40,000 children in the province still lived in households below the low-income threshold. According to the report, that accounts for about 23 per cent of children.

“The Nova Scotia government must take responsibility for providing insufficient income support to people at higher risk of poverty,” stated the report.

“Its inadequate support traps people in poverty, resulting in food and housing insecurity, harming their health and well-being, and stymying their future plans.”

Major gaps to reach poverty line

The report showed the after-tax median income for a lone parent with one child living in poverty is $22,730, more than $14,600 below the poverty line. The gap between income and the poverty line for a couple with one child is $12,349; it’s $15,359 for a lone parent with two children; and it’s $13,984 for a couple with two children.

According to the report, the support provided to a lone parent with one child is the lowest among all provinces.

Christine Saulnier, one of the report authors and Nova Scotia director of the CCPA, said “it’s troubling” how little priority appears to be placed on the issue. She said what’s required more than anything is a significant increase in income assistance rates so the poorest people in the province have a chance to improve their lives.

The provincial government indexed income assistance rates to inflation last year but it will not be known until the provincial budget is tabled later this month whether there will be further increases.

“I really think we’re stuck at a place where we don’t trust families who are living in poverty,” Saulnier said in an interview.

“We don’t trust that they’re going to make the right decisions about the income and we don’t trust that if we are quote-unquote generous enough that they will exit the system.”

Call for poverty elimination plan

Saulnier said targeted government efforts such as help for school supplies, a universal school lunch program and a one percentage point reduction in the HST have not been enough to help the families that need it the most. Her report calls for an expansion of the affordable living tax credit and fewer restrictions on the ways that support can be used to help a recipient’s family.

The report noted that the Progressive Conservatives promised a child poverty reduction strategy when they were elected in 2021, but it hasn’t materialized. The organization is recommending the government implement and fund a poverty elimination plan with targets and timelines to end child poverty by 2031.

It’s also calling for the government to immediately fulfil a promise to establish a child and youth advocate to monitor progress on the poverty elimination plan. Social Development Minister Barb Adams said in December that the budget would include money to create that office.

Sauliner said it’s not surprising that Nova Scotia has made less progress than other provinces in addressing poverty rates, because it had the lowest per-capita spending in the country on social protection in 2023 and 2024. The report defines social protection as “the systematic intervention intended to relieve households and individuals of the burden of a defined set of social risks.”

The report found that Nova Scotia’s per-capita spending rate was $1,308, compared to a national average of $2,703.

“We’re really starting at a base where we have not been investing in the ways that other provinces have,” said Saulnier.

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