Toronto: The Downton Abbey of Canada?
2015/04/21 2 Comments
More on the working poor in Toronto (great media line):
“Canada’s two richest cities are becoming giant modern-day Downton Abbeys where a well-to-do knowledge class relies on a large cadre of working poor who pour their coffee, serve their food, clean their offices, and relay their messages from one office to another,” it says, referring to the popular British TV drama about an aristocratic family and their servants.
Knowledge workers include senior managers and professionals in business, finance, government, law, education, health care, media, arts, sports and entertainment.
The report is an update of Stapleton’s landmark 2012 research, which showed Toronto’s working poor grew by a staggering 42 per cent in the first five years of the millennium. (Although this earlier work was based on the long-form census, which no longer exists, Stapleton has used Statistics Canada tax filer data to replicate his 2012 findings and inform his latest report.)
He defines the working poor as non-students between the ages of 18 and 65, living independently, earning more than $3,000 but less than the low income measure (LIM), defined as 50 per cent of the median income.
By that measure, a single person in 2011 with annual earnings of less than $19,930, after taxes and government transfers, was considered working poor. In today’s dollars, it would be about $20,800. For a family of four, it would be just over $41,600.
The “good news,” Stapleton says, is that the rate of increase in working poverty in Toronto has slowed from a decade ago.
But despite an improving economy, increases to the minimum wage and new income supports such as the federal Working Income Tax Benefit, Universal Child Care Benefit and Ontario Child Benefit, working poverty in the city continues to climb.
In the city of Toronto, where almost 11 per cent, or 142,000 adults, are living in working poor households, working poverty is concentrated in the inner suburbs of North York (13 per cent) Scarborough (12 per cent) and York (10 per cent).
It has also begun to spill into York and Peel regions where the cities of Markham and Brampton lead with working poverty rates of 10.2 per cent and 9.6 per cent respectively, according to the report.
“For the first time, working poverty is growing faster in the outer suburbs like Markham, Brampton and Richmond Hill compared to south of Steeles Ave.,” Stapleton says. It grew in Markham by 26 per cent, in Brampton by 22 per cent and in Richmond Hill by 21 per cent, he notes.
Although more research is needed to fully explain this phenomenon, Stapleton suspects it is largely because housing in the city of Toronto is becoming too expensive for low-wage workers.
Needless to say, given Toronto’s diversity, this correlates with visible minorities (median incomes of first generation and many second generation immigrants are lower than non-visible minorities).
About Andrew
Multicultural Meanderings 
I saw this article yesterday and my immediate thought was ” everything old is new again!”. I have watched Downton Abbey occasionally and found it somewhat disturbing, although enjoyable.
Downtown Abbey depicts what must have been similar to the type of life for my own family and friends, both back in Scotland and after immigration to Canada in the years after WWI (My father and uncle came as Home Children.).. Generally, the men worked on the farms north of Toronto and women usually as domestic servants in the city homes owned by the landowners. My family were fortunate to have good employers but knew of others who were badly treated. They felt there was more opportunity here (i.e. to eventually own your own land!) but, still, it was a system which perpetuated an increasing gap between rich and poor. It all changed with World War II. after which we saw so much growth and opportunity for the “middle class”.
It is sad to see us go back to having wealth concentrated to fewer people and, again, a trend to many more “working poor”. It will take a concerted and cooperative effort of all our politicians to change that and, at this point, any signs of that happening is not apparent. Surely, we can do better in Canada.
Thanks Marion for sharing your experience and that of your father and uncle. I remember working on the Home Children event and remembrance and it was meaningful to be more aware of this part of our history.