A report from Community Food Centres Canada found:
more than one in five single adults (22 per cent) live below the poverty line… Many working-age single adults rely on low-wage, part-time, temporary employment opportunities that lack benefits and stability. The social support programs in place are outdated and inadequate for the current labor market, contributing to the challenges these individuals face, the report cited.
According to the report, nearly one million working-age single adults are stuck in a cycle of “deep” poverty with an average annual income of $11,700, which is less than half of the $25,252 low-income threshold for a single-adult household.
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These working-age single adults make up to 38 per cent of all food-insecure households in the country with 61 per cent of them severely disabled living alone below the poverty line, the report said.
The report highlights that nearly half of single adults (47 per cent) live in unaffordable housing compared to 17 per cent in other household types and 81 per cent of shelter users are single adults with low income.
“The evidence is overwhelmingly clear – through woefully inadequate income support programs and a labour market that creates precarity because of low wages and few benefits, we are trapping people in poverty in this country,” Community Food Centres Canada CEO Nick Saul said in a news release published on Thursday.
Their website says: “Two things are very clear: a job is not a pathway out of poverty, and income support for this demographic lags far behind other groups.”