Poverty in Saint John Myth or Proproganda? (Part 1)

 

Poverty in Saint John is it a Myth? After reading the Telegraph Journal; Randy Hatfield's article on" We're living on food banks"; Published Tuesday October 5th, 2010, opens the eye's on food banks and programs for children that feed them.  “In 2009, 25.8 per cent of individuals served by food banks in the region were children, up from 19.3 per cent in 2008”. So When I saw Mike Mullen's Article on "Local poverty rates below N.B. levels” Published Tuesday October 5th, 2010. I was curious to see “Jane Barry, executive director of the Greater Saint John Community Foundation, says the drop in poverty rates has to be encouraging for the volunteers addressing the poverty issue". I was curious to see if they were trying to hide the real truth or were we really getting better? 

If you take the statistics it will drive you crazy because looking at the demographics on the City of Saint John website to the Province of New Brunswick living in the greater Saint John area we are missing a few people. According to the City of Saint John site we have 122,389 Saint John Census Metropolitan Area (CMA). According to the Province of New Brunswick site we have 167,343 people in the greater Saint John Area. Only a 44,954 difference but who thought the Province and the City of Saint John knew what each was putting up for statistics.  So that alone makes you shake your head but then I looked at the real poverty something that is being hidden and well hidden. Especially if they do not include the amount of people receiving Social Assistance.

They say our unemployment rate in Saint John is 8.9%. So how do they calculate this?

 We have according to the GNB website 167,000 people living in the Greater Saint John Area. 138,100 that are over the age of 15 as generally most under 16 do not work in the labor force. Labour Force of 86,760; Employed 79,000; Unemployed 7,760; Not in Labour Force 49,315; Unemployment Rate 8.9%; Participation Rate 62.8%.

Unemployment Rate = (Unemployed Workers / Total Labor Force) * 100

Unemployment Rate = (7760/86760)*100 = 8.9%

As per the calculation done you see it looks bad but not too bad.

Now let use the Saint John numbers in the same Calculation based on the numbers from the Saint John Site (Enterprise Saint John):

Unemployment Rate = (Unemployed Workers / Total Labor Force) * 100

Unemployment Rate = (7760/70,400)*100 = 11.02%

Here’s the catch:

As per Statistics Canada and speaking to the people in the Province of New Brunswick in 3 different departments found out that this does not take in the amount of people receiving Social Assistance.

So let’s look at those and add them in and see the real truth of how many people are actually unemployed in the City of Saint John.

It would take me an hour to give you how to calculate this because you have to use the annual report from 2009 to find percentage of people living in Saint John over the Provincial amount because there is no true breakdown.

As of September 2010 there were 40,570 recipients of Social Assistance in the Province. Using the 2009 annual report we find out of the 39,039 people on assistance 11,000 resided in Saint John. If we take the statistics and pertain it to Saint John it leads to 11,436 people on assistance or 28.18%.

 So let’s narrow it down to give a real picture.

 If we take that provincially there are 112 people age 0-17 year old out and 64 people over the age of 65 we are left with 40394 take the 28.18% that leaves 11,384 people.  In Saint John that would be have the age of the statistic use to classify the labor market. So if we take the 11,384 people add them to the 7760 people unemployed. 

 Using Enterprise Saint John Numbers:

Unemployment Rate = (Unemployed Workers / Total Labor Force) * 100

Unemployment Rate = (7760+11384/70,400)*100 = 27.19%

Using Government of New Brunswick Numbers:

Unemployment Rate = (Unemployed Workers / Total Labor Force) * 100

Unemployment Rate = (7760+11384/86760)*100 = 22.7%

So sometimes the truth is hidden but a little math and you see the real truth.  So approximately 22.7% of the residents of Saint John that are as EI states ready able and willing to go to work are not.  I saw the articles and said statistics lie because a too many variables are left out and if we are really seeing a downturn in Poverty in Saint John then why is it all of a sudden happening. So how can Poverty be addressed when they are saying only 8.9% of the 22.7% of Saint John people are without work? There is a lot more that I will have in the future pieces on housing and other key topics on Poverty. If you don’t believe these numbers shown , Prove Me Wrong!