We saw a huge decline in child poverty in Alberta after Notley and Trudeau introduced the Alberta Child Benefit and Canada Child Benefit respectively (both revamped from former, less effective programs), which continued to decline in 2020 due to Federal pandemic supports, but immediately after skyrocketed again over the next few years. Now the newest Alberta Child Poverty Report shows that 1 in 5 children in Alberta lives in poverty. :(

The report concludes that:

The recent history of government benefits has proven that governments can significantly reduce poverty when they invest in the social safety net, yet these lessons have not been being fully realized. CERB in particular represents one of the largest missed learning opportunities. Governments could have used COVID-19 benefits as a framework to make long-term improvements to the social safety net, through measures such as increasing benefit amounts, widening eligibility criteria, and reducing punitive claw backs.

https://www.pialberta.org/end_child_poverty

#abpoli #cdnpoli #poverty