‘sy street for some,

| struggle for most,
loverty for too many

T LEAST
Persons

for te fi

ONE out of every three
im Toronto drives a car.
ee Bure varies—but not much

areas throughout Canada.

The ¢

a :
Pethighw are driven along multi-lane
Ig they're 9 to work. In the eve-
Portion of Tiven back home, a big

the ee aaa to neat bungalows

Some
to. af Course, take the street-
‘Many of ,pu¢ home again. Home
{nkin these may be one of the
ildings ee high-rise apartment
M areas 8 the central down-

In 9;
ag nel ca

Supper S€ Many will go home

SPark]j €pt fresh during the da

a dial 8 Teftigerator and ceoked
! Ocey Wipped stove. A TV set
mM for ad & corner of the living
tainment. €vening’s ready-made en-

a

This ;
} Is
*ybody:, “ne affluent society and
S8Y the pve! had it so good. Or

Publicists of the new life.
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tS Tea
ence ie pcm is how to judge
dict; S Opposite — poverty.
Onary defines picnics
Tiches.” How should

Ons
Poses ened Vary on this. But for
Wou “a review a realistic ap-
Society is €m to be that an afflu-
qtizens 4, Ne Which enables all
Signitie Be oe a fully decent
ater} » COrresponding to
Utceg Pe and featioiegical re-
Society, :

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ee : Wn the mind and body.
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This cone tuited at the least to ful-

“pt in Canada today?

cord
the omit @ study made in 1959
5 t the a Bureau of Statistics,
re? live, et#8e family $5,570 a
a Woulg po diusted for 1961, the
id Person $5,690, For single, un-
Bg come nes im the labor’ force
€d in 1961 would be

reac
MNeome jadtian family whose an-
a in the $5,000 - $6,000

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nited Mine Workers Journal

category (or at least the higher half
of this bracket) should be able to
make ends meet. But an article else-
where shows the many problems still
confronting such a family.

What about the other side — the
existence of poverty.

First of all, how to define poverty?
The dictionary puts it this way: “The
condition of being poor or without
means... The quality or state of be-
ing deficient in all or any of those
qualities or properties which make
anything desirable or excellent.”

The dictionary also says that pov-
erty is relative, and this is a point to
be borne in mind in any discussion of
poverty in Canada.

In this country, with its developed
technolog’cal base and the resulting
standard of living that has come into
being, the concept of poverty cannot
be equated with the concept of pover-
ty in other countries or in other times.

Poverty has to be seen from a Can-
adian point of view in terms of the
lack of “those qualities or properties
which make anything desirable or ex-
cellent” in Canada today.

Concretely, then, what do we mean
by poverty — or, to use another ex-
pression, a subsistence level of exist-
ence?

A 1961 estimate made by the Visit-
ing Homemakers Association in To-
ronto established a minimum budget
for two families of four each as rang-
ing from $2,952 a year to $3,288, tak-
ing into account age of children, etc.
These figures did not include finance
company or other debts.

The word “minimum” for the
budgets was apt. It permitted a per-
sonal allowance of 75. cents to $1.50 a
week for each adult, and 10-12 cents
for each child. Try getting any fun out
of life from that.

It seems fully realistic, therefore, to
state that a family whose income is
$3,000 or less a year is living a de-
cidedly subsistence life as it can be
defined in Canada today. For single
persons an income of $1,500 or less a
year would also meet this definition.

For families whose income is $4,000
a year or less, subsistence may not
apply (although one is tempted to de-
bate this), but it can certainly be said
that such families are living in condi-
tions of deprivation. The same can be
said for single persons whose income
is $2,000 a year or less.

In somewhat better.conditions, but
still not yet affluent, are the families
in the $4,000-$5,000 a year category
and single persons in the $2,000-$2,500
a year bracket.

So, having worked through some de-

finitions, where do we stand, based
on 1961 census figures?

@ 22 percent of Canadians (almost
four million) lived in non-farm
families whose total family income
was $3,000 or less or were single per-
sons making $1,500 or less a year;

e@ 13 percent (more than 214 mil-
lion) were in families of $3,000-$4,000
income or were single persons earn-
ing from $1,500-$2,000;

e@ 14 percent (almost 214 million)
were in families of $4,000-$5,000 in-
come, or were single persons earning
$2,000-$2,500;

e@ 11 percent (more than 2 million)
were in the family category of $5,000-
$6,000, or in the single person bracket
of $2,500-$3,000;

@ 27 percent (more than 4% mil-
lion) were over the $6,000-a-year
family mark or the $3,000-a-year
single person figure. Of these, how-
ever, only six percent were in fami-
lies with incomes of $10,000 or more
or were single persons earning $5,000
or more. And only two percent were
in families with incomes of $15,000 or
more or were single persons earning
$10,000 or more.

Thus, of the non-farm population,
35 percent of Canadians (614 million)
lived at subsistence or deprivation
levels; another 14 percent were de-
finitely less than affluent; 11 percent
ranged upwards from this to having
a little more than the average said to
be enough to get by on, and 27 per-
cent were above this average, in vary-
ing degrees.

As stated, the above figures do not
include the farm section of the popu-
lation, which accounts for some 11.4
percent of Canadians, leaving a little
more than one percent of Canadians
(in institutions, etc.) who are not in-
cluded in the census breakdown
figures.

But the vast majority of farmers
are not noted for their affluence.

-It would therefore be no unreal
stretch of the imagination to say that
of the farm population and those not
included in the census, more than half
would fall within the $4,000 and less
category. :

Taking only half, however, would
give a total of at least 41 percent liv-

ing at subsistence or deprivation lev-
els — barely enough to live on.

But regardless of that, some might
say, the overwhelming majority of
Canadians, including those in the low-
income brackets, are nevertheless driv-
ing cars, living in homes with TV sets
and so on. Surely these things reflect,
in fact, an affluent society.

They have a point. It might be said
that our society is affluent if afflu-
ence means: having the cars and TV
sets, but having along with them the
massive debt of credit buying, the
constant struggle to make ends meet,
to provide enough to eat and at the
same time to be able to pay the bills
as they come due, and constantly fac-
ing the job insecurity that more and
more marks our society with the
advent of technological change and
the threat of automation. And speed-
up in industry today has become a
menace to life and limb.

Many Canadians manage to live this
way (a great many, too, are unable
to manage even this), but whatever
affluence is come by this way neces-
sitates a fight all along the way. And
this fight is by no means won by a
family even at $6,000 a year. It is
often lost by those making $4,000 a
year or less.

With planned obsolescence, high-
powered TV, radio and newspaper ads
urging the buying of this or that to
keep up with the affluent image, the
deficit budget of the average work-
ingman’s family is pushed ever high-
er by a profit-hungry big business.

But is this a way of life to be es-
teemed? Surely the concept of an af-
fluent society should be of the type
mentioned earlier — one in which
everyone shares rightfully and fully
in a decent and dignified life, free
from insecurity, as our resources and
technology warrant.

This four-page “‘special’”’ on
“Canada: an affluent socie-
ty?” was prepared by Tribune
staff writer William Devine
with the assistance of other
staff members. It is an initial
attempt to explore a problem
of concern to all Canadians.
We hope it will stimulate
further exploration.

March 20, 1964—PACIFIC TRIBUNE—Page 5