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Aboriginal People in Manitoba 2000 Chapter 6 : Labour and Income

With median incomes so far below the norm, one supposes that large numbers of Aboriginal individuals and families are living in poverty by Canadian standards. There is, however, no agreed on definition of poverty.

The most commonly used “poverty” indicators are Statistics Canada’s low-income cut-offs (LICO’s), which are based upon the relative proportion of family income spent on food, clothing and shelter, and which vary according to family size and size of community. However, Statistics Canada does not refer to LICO’s as poverty indicators, and what they appear to measure is income inequality, not poverty in any absolute sense.²⁷

For purposes of this book, we will refer to people or families as “having incomes below the LICO” in their community, or “low-income families,” rather than families “living in poverty.” The distinction, however, may be moot to the extent that it is relative or perceived deprivation, and not absolute poverty, which works its deleterious effects on the life chances of low income people — on health indicators for example, or educational achievement.

Regardless of possible inadequacies or biases in the LICO indicator, there are strikingly higher numbers of Aboriginal low-income households in the west, and especially in Manitoba and Saskatchewan, than elsewhere in the country. Excluding reserves, 63% of Aboriginal children in Manitoba lived in households with incomes below the LICO. This is compared to 52% of Aboriginal children across Canada, 45% or less of Aboriginal children in provinces east of Manitoba, and 22.6% of non-Aboriginal Canadian children.²⁸

In all provinces, the incidence of low income among Aboriginal children is substantially higher in the large cities than other off-reserve locations. Statistics show that 72% of Winnipeg Aboriginal children live in low-income households, a figure comparable to Regina and Saskatoon. This drops to 65% in Edmonton, 59% in Calgary, 58% in Vancouver, 56% in Thunder Bay, 49% in Montreal, and 41% in Toronto and Ottawa-Hull. Winnipeg Aboriginal children are 3.3 times as likely to live in low-income households as Winnipeg non-Aboriginal children, and 1.8 times as likely as Aboriginal children in Toronto.²⁹

Within Manitoba, the following table compares the percentages of 1996 Census respondents with incomes less than the LICO, excluding reserves:

In Winnipeg alone, the comparable figures are:

For non-Aboriginal people, the low-income status rate in Winnipeg is 2-3% higher than the provincial average, reflecting a higher cost of living and/or a bias in the LICO indicator.³⁰ But for Aboriginal people, the urban/rural difference is much greater. 51% of Metis in Winnipeg have incomes under the LICO, and only about 30% outside Winnipeg. The Manitoba average for off-reserve Status Indians under the LICO is 66%, and in Winnipeg alone, 75%. Regardless of any possible bias in the LICO indicator, Aboriginal people in Winnipeg clearly have lower average standards of living than their counterparts off reserve outside Winnipeg.

There are differences of about 10% between the Winnipeg and provincial figures for all Aboriginal persons, adults 18+, children 0 -17, and for couples with children. Interestingly, the difference is only 3-4% for single parent families, or about the same as the non-Aboriginal urban/provincial variance. Aboriginal single parent families in Winnipeg do not appear to be substantially worse off than their counterparts off reserve outside Winnipeg.

In absolute terms, however, the low-income rate for Aboriginal single parent families, inside or outside Winnipeg, is appalling. Provincially, 89.2% of off-reserve Status Indian single parents (and their children) fall below the LICO, as do 81.7% of Metis single parents. While 52.4% of all off-reserve Aboriginal people fall below the LICO, and 53.9% of non-Aboriginal single parents, the average figure for all off-reserve Aboriginal single parents is 85.5%.

There is, by the way, nothing inevitable about low income for female-led single parent households. First World countries vary remarkably in this regard. The 1993 Luxembourg Income Study documented the proportion of households receiving income less than 50% of the country’s median income, after transfers and taxes, and adjusted for family size. The differences reflect not market forces, but the political priority placed on reducing child poverty. Their results were as follows:

Source: The Canadian Fact Book on Poverty, CCSD, 1994. The “households” column includes unattached individuals and excludes households where the head of household is over age 60.

Large numbers of Manitoba Aboriginal couples with children also fall below the LICO. For non-Aboriginal “traditional families,” only 13% have incomes less than the LICO. By contrast, 38.6% of off-reserve Aboriginal couples with children fall below the LICO. A slight majority (52.7%) of off-reserve Status couples with children fall below the LICO, including 65.6% in Winnipeg.

Province-wide, the majority of Metis couples with children have incomes exceeding the LICO, a reflection of a higher labour market participation rate that results in larger numbers of two-income families. Still, 29.7% of Metis couples with children fall below the LICO, including 37.8% in Winnipeg.

Finally, the Social Planning Council of Winnipeg’s “Child Poverty in Manitoba” 1998 Report notes that in Winnipeg in 1996:

…a single parent on social assistance with one child received an income that was 52% of the poverty line [LICO indicator]. A couple with two children received an income that was 56% of the poverty line. Between 1995 and 1996, families with children saw a decrease in their social assistance incomes: 1.0% and 5.8% respectively for a single parent with one child and a couple with two children.

The same report indicated that in 1996, the average “poverty gap” (i.e. the difference between family income and the LICO) was $8,928 after government transfers, compared to $17,368 before government transfers. Therefore, the effect of government transfers was to increase the average annual income of families having incomes below the LICO by $8,440. ³¹