New Brunswick’s latest report on poverty reduction showed promising signs for the province.
On February 12, the Economic and Social Inclusion Corporation released Overcoming Poverty Together: The New Brunswick Economic and Social Inclusion Plan 2014-2019.
The document showed the number of New Brunswickers living in poverty went down from 100,000 in 2010 to 58,000 in 2018 – a 42 per cent drop.
That put the province in a tie with Quebec for the second-best provincial poverty rate in Canada at 7.9 per cent, trailing only Alberta.
Executive Director Stéphane Leclair said the improvements referenced in the report are a big deal.
“We know how tough it is to navigate through the economy when people are losing their job and so on, but because of the collaboration of the four sectors we are seeing a big change on the New Brunswick landscape,” Leclair said.
The four sectors are made up of government, citizens, non-profit, and businesses, all of which are intended to support the others.
Despite the positive numbers in the latest report, Leclair says there’s always more that can be done to improve the lives of New Brunswickers living in poverty.
“Poverty reduction is something that we should never, ever, ever lose out of our scope or stop looking at,” said Leclair. “There’s always people that need help or could have a better quality of life at the end of the day.”
From 2010-2018 the province saw drops in poverty rates among female single-parent families (33 per cent), coupled families (57 per cent), and non-family individuals (15.1 per cent).
