Hello Fellow Social Change Agents - An Introduction
Hello fellow Social Change Agents!
I am wrapping up my second week here as an official member of the Tamarack Family and have been reflecting on my experience so far.
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Hello fellow Social Change Agents!
I am wrapping up my second week here as an official member of the Tamarack Family and have been reflecting on my experience so far.
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Just before the holidays, United Way of Central Iowa, as part of the OpportUNITY Plan, announced that in 2016, 11,000 more individuals were financially self-sufficient in three state counties: Polk, Warren, and Dallas. This is incredibly significant to the community, as it marks the first time in recent memory that Central Iowa has seen a reduction in poverty. The good news reflects well on the hard work of United Way of Central Iowa and their partners, the value of a Collective Impact approach to poverty reduction, and the importance of a robust measurement strategy.
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In one of my volunteer roles, I co-chair LivingSJ—a collective impact movement in Saint John with a goal to end generational poverty. What many may not realize is that generational poverty is a much more stubborn and complex problem to solve than situational or temporary poverty. When a person or family with a job/house/car/etc… gets into dire straits after suffering a catastrophic financial event, they are often privileged to have friends and family with assets to lean on temporarily, with their gravity typically pulling them upward towards recovering to their norm. However, with generational poverty, the gravitational pull is often reversed, continually holding people down, generation after generation, because in many respects the knowledge of what heights can be reached gets lost to the collective conscience.
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In its 16th Annual Report, Strength in numbers: Targeting labour force participation to improve prosperity in Ontario, Ontario’s Panel on Economic Growth & Prosperity analyzes Ontario's GDP per capita compared to ten similar peer jurisdictions (Ohio, Wisconsin, Indiana, the Netherlands, Tennessee, Sweden, Michigan, Australia, British Columbia, and Québec) and analyzes the labour force participation rate of youth, women, older workers, and Indigenous Peoples in Ontario.
The analysis reveals that Ontario continues to experience a ‘prosperity gap’ – GDP per capita is $5,600 below its peer jurisdictions.
Removing the barriers faced by these four groups has the potential to close Ontario's prosperity gap and could add $54.0 billion to the economy.
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British Columbia is one of the most prosperous provinces in Canada, yet poverty remains a serious issue in many communities. According to a new report released today, key indicators of poverty remain startlingly high in the Lower Columbia Region (LCR) of BC’s West Kootenay. For example, the four local foodbanks support approximately 5,000 visits per year. Additionally 1,600 households – 1 in 5 in the region – are in housing need, and in 2013, the last year for which there is reliable data, 990 children were living in poverty.
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The January 1, 2019 looming deadline of a minimum wage increase to $15 / hour has people on both sides of the pay cheque debating the merits of this increase and the potential unintended consequences of moving so much so fast. We have the employer discussing the impact to their bottom line as any increase in expenses directly impacting profit. On the other side of the paycheque we have social leaders advocating the positive economic impact that this wage increase will have on both the individual employee and the greater economy.
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