Building a better social safety net

Opinion

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This article was published 30/01/2024 (619 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

There is growing alarm about the gap between income and the cost of living. It is being referred to as an “affordability crisis.” But isn’t it really an inequity crisis?

Isn’t the problem a concentration of wealth, in an economy designed to create winners and losers? And then isn’t the logical solution a redistribution of wealth and reworking of economic and social systems?

It’s not as if suddenly everyone could afford everything, then the problem would be solved.

First, because we live on a finite planet, we can’t all live the lifestyles of the rich and famous, that would take a few more planets. Which means we can’t address poverty and inequity by everyone getting a bigger slice of everything. In community economic development we have a saying, “enough for all, forever.” There is enough, the issue is sharing it more fairly.

Unfortunately, the inequity problem has been successfully framed as an individual affordability problem, caused by big government and high taxes, rather than systemic problem of low wages, price gouging, obscene profits and compounding interest. The solution is presented as cutting taxes and austerity to shrink government spending, when really, that is part of the problem.

The social safety net is often presented as an expense rather than an investment into the human capacity of Manitobans, an investment, if well made, that has a large return. Ongoing research shows preventing children from growing up in poverty and abuse will save a lot of down the road.

Now that even people working full time are having a difficult time paying their bills, maybe the stigma, blame and shame of the deserving and undeserving can shift. Similarly, seeing the privileged assumptions behind “if social programs are too comfortable people won’t work.”

From a systems view, there are two main ways to redistribute wealth; higher wages and higher taxes supporting public and community services.

We can view the Manitoba social safety net through an intersectional lens — the existing support systems like CFS, housing and income supports, help with mental health and healing from abuse, child care and parenting supports — the challenge revealed is not just underfunding, it is system design. Biased assumptions are embedded in the social safety net, actually making it unsafe.

For example, the Employment and Income Assistance Program, (EIA) or welfare, is a poverty trap. Single people on EIA have a living allowance of $220 per month, plus their rent allowance. But they can only earn $200 per month in wages, before losing 70 cents on the dollar for any additional earnings. Could an income program allow people to instead earn their way off EIA?

Housing cost inflation and high interest rates are affecting both renters and homeowners. It’s partially due to financialization of housing, but also since the 1990s, the construction of social housing. Particularly public housing has declined from a thousand units per year to almost none, with a reliance instead on an inefficient patchwork for non-profit housing that is difficult to build quickly and the private market with insufficient regulation to protect affordability and stable tenancies.

In 2023, the families of 6,000 children won the $10 child-care lottery. This costs a budget of $300 million.

However, Manitoba has about 53,300 children under five, so there are thousands of families on wait lists and scrambling. Plus, kindergarten- to Grade 6-aged kids. Remember, that annual gas tax cut could double our childcare budget. Ongoing sexism about women and work undermine our budget making and childcare crisis, including low wages for childcare workers.

Meanwhile, Child and Family Services currently has about 10,000 children in care, 80 per cent of them Indigenous. There are many reports, inquiries and studies that point to moving from apprehending children to stigma free, healthy family supports that prevents abuse and neglect. Especially knowing kids who grow up moving through CFS are more likely to not complete school, be unemployed, deal with mental health challenges and homelessness.

Gender-based violence became a shadow pandemic during COVID lock down and is one of the main reasons that people turn to our social safety net. With close to half of marriages resulting in separation, there is a huge need for conflict resolution, mental health support and healing for parents and children alike. And that is for families where the separation is mutual and amicable, let alone where there is patriarchal attitudes, violence and abuse.

Inequity, poverty, abuse and violence are expensive. Manitoba can realize the positive impact when children grow up free from poverty, violence and abuse. The Reweaving Support Project envisions a trauma-informed social safety net, an economic and fiscal framework to support it through collaborative new governance structures, including a participatory, intersectional budget.

It’s time for social innovation in our social services to address trauma and inequity, beyond charity models, to respect human rights and human dignity. Go to Reweavingsupport.ca to join the movement.

Marianne Cerilli works in health education, community development and politics.