Kids Can’t Wait
The 2022 report provides child and family poverty rates for Nova Scotia, based on 2020 data. Nova Scotia’s child poverty rate in 2020 decreased by 24.3%. This is the most significant single-year reduction on record (between 2019 and 2020). 31,370 children were living in low-income families in Nova Scotia. Government benefits reduced child poverty by 55.9%, lifting 26,810 children aged 0-17 out of poverty in NS, without those transfers, the child poverty rate would have been 41.4%.
Without the temporary pandemic benefits (including the CERB), the child poverty rate in Nova Scotia would have increased. Nova Scotians received 99% of temporary benefits from the federal government (only 0.3% from the provincial government).
This report also offers 17 recommendations for government to eradicate poverty.
About the authors
Lesley Frank
Christine Saulnier
Christine Saulnier (she/her) is Director of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives-Nova Scotia. She has a doctorate in Political Science from York University. She leads the living wage calculations for communities across Atlantic Canada and serves as a co-author of the annual child and family poverty report cards for Nova Scotia. She has written extensively, and given commentary on a range of other public policy issues including fiscal policy, labour markets, and child care policy. She serves on the Steering Committee of Child Care Now Nova Scotia, and Campaign 2000 (national coalition to end child and family poverty). She served on the Board of the NS Health Coalition and Adsum for 10 years.
