I grew up in an apartment tower in the Kingston-Galloway-Orton Park community in East Scarborough. Like many of my friends I came from an incredibly hard-working racialized family, yet many of us grew up in poverty. As I read The Working Poor: A Closer Look at the Increasing Numbers, it brought back many memories. The report brings to light the geographic and racialized nature of poverty in Toronto, paints a nuanced picture of who is being left behind in Toronto’s labour market growth, and offers a window into the lived realities of the people behind the numbers. The findings of this report demonstrate the need for solutions to the geographic nature of poverty, particularly with respect to Toronto’s inner-city suburbs.

This report revisits the “Manhattanization” of Toronto whereby “poorer individuals and families are being driven to both the inner and outer suburbs.” As Toronto continues to become more unaffordable, people who live in Toronto’s outer suburbs, who are by definition both working poor and non-working poor, are commuting increasingly long distances to and from work. The extent to which those in Toronto’s outer suburbs go to find work above minimum wage is an alarming indicator of Toronto’s bleak employment prospects, especially for those who find themselves in the fields of declining occupations such as manufacturing. Because there is little employment planning by geography in the city, many people (often racialized) cannot afford to live anywhere near where they work.

In East Scarborough for example, a group of men who live in Brampton and Mississauga (cities with growing working poor populations) pool together resources to rent a home near their workplace — a factory located in a dense manufacturing corridor. The men work continental shifts — 12-hour shifts, four days on and four days off — rotating between day and night shifts each week. When their workweek is over, they travel back home. This lifestyle requires being distanced from family for long periods of time, additional costs of living, and other challenges such as overcrowded living conditions. This job, however, unlike most, pays around $30/hour — more than twice that of Ontario’s minimum wage.

In Scarborough, where the highest levels of working poverty in Toronto exist, a lack of local employment opportunities is being further perpetuated through development planning which allows for the conversion of employment lands to residential use. At the moment, the Province’s amendments to the 2017 Growth Plan have failed to designate any employment lands in Scarborough south of the 401 as Provincially Significant Employment Zones. This will result in increased development applications for the rezoning of employment lands (much of which is manufacturing) to residential use, eliminating even more local employment.

At Centre for Connected Communities (C3), we have seen how our city’s poorest people travel the furthest for work. We have spent the last several years developing place-based solutions rooted in a deep understanding of local context and players. C3 and The East Scarborough Storefront are currently spearheading place-based workforce development through East Scarborough Works (ESW). ESW uses an innovative approach to community development, called the Connected Community Approach. This approach is designed ensure that when local jobs are created through public institutions and infrastructure projects, that local people living in poverty are given the best possible chance of being successful candidates for those jobs.

ESW recognizes that even when the components of employment ecosystems exist in a community‚ including residents, social services, employment organizations, and employers — they are typically disconnected from one another. The project cultivates a deep understanding of people and networks in the community to leverage available resources to create effective workforce development pathways, and to ultimately connect Scarborough’s employers with those living in poverty in their shared neighbourhood.

As people living in poverty continue to be pushed out to Toronto’s inner and outer suburbs, a place-based approach to workforce development in equity-seeking neighbourhoods will be a critical part of the solution to address the growing population of working poor.

Ajeev Bhatia is Manager of Policy/Community Connections at Centre for Connected Communities, a PLACES Fellow Alumni of The Funders Network for Smart Growth and Livable Communities, and is currently a MSc.Pl. Candidate at the University of Toronto. C3’s purpose is to help people, organizations and institutions effectively unlock the potential of community to find and implement creative, collective solutions to complex social issues.

In The Working Poor in the Toronto Region series, John Stapleton identifies what he calls the “Downton Abbey” dynamic of the Toronto labour market. While most job categories are stagnant or declining, the professional and knowledge classes are growing and seeing proportionally higher wage gains.

This growing group of moderate- to high-income earners is strapped for time. They aspire to a Downton-esque lifestyle complete with 24/7 conveniences at the lowest prices possible. The butlers, ladies’ maids, and unpaid homemakers of yore have been replaced by poorly-paid workers who courier food and packages to upper- and middle-class residences, serve coffee, prepare meals, clean houses, care for children and aging parents, and more. These insecure service jobs are often part-time, have odd and inconsistent hours, and lack benefits.

With help from the Metcalf Foundation, for the past several years we at West Neighbourhood House have been studyingthe rise of precarious, informal work and the informal economy within the Toronto neighbourhood we serve. The informal economy encompasses a huge variety of different kinds of work including the working poor whose informal work does not bring them above the Low-Income Measure. Ride-share and food courier drivers are largely part of the informal economy, as are bottle collectors, many musicians and artists, and people who do childcare, hospitality work, home renovations or odd jobs for cash. Many of these workers are currently captured by the “non-working” poor category in Stapleton’s composition of Toronto’s working age population. Informal work can require only minimal qualifications and offer a high degree of flexibility, making it easier to access for those who for a variety of reasons have faced barriers to formal employment.

Here’s a bit about what we’ve learned: low-income informal workers are not tax cheats. They are often owed more in government benefits than the taxes they have due. Many who are cobbling together income from informal sources do not file taxes and miss out on the credits and refunds they are owed. They may be unfamiliar with the tax system, intimidated by the prospect of filing a complex tax return with many sources of income, or afraid they will suffer some kind of penalty if they file their taxes. Perhaps they’ve neglected to file for a few years and fear a large tax bill, or worry filing a return will “awaken the beast” of outstanding debts.

Secondly, informal workers are community builders. Unlike wealthier folks who stockpile their money, informal income quickly gets spent back into the local economy. To put this in fancy economic terms, informal work generates “high-velocity money” — a critical indicator of an economy’s health.

Thirdly, informal workers are struggling to cover the costs of living in Toronto. Most of the informal workers we spoke to would prefer to be formally employed, and in fact, many of them are. However, because their wages are not sufficient to cover the exorbitant costs of living in Toronto, they need to supplement their wages. Unfortunately, business owners and consumers can prefer to avoid the costs of formalizing work, which drives up the demand for cash transactions.

Consumer demand for cheap services, companies’ desire for profitability, and the erosion of employment standards all lead to trends among employers to find ways to avoid taxes, CPP and EI contributions, and other costs associated with formal employment. For many people working on contracts or for cash, missing out on these benefits can add up to a fortune left on the table. We often forget that the informal economy is made up of many actors and most of us play a role as: the consumer, the employer or contractor, the worker, intermediaries, or the regulatory system. It is a microeconomy within the larger economic system, not just a few rogue workers.

At West Neighbourhood House, we’re using the information we’ve gathered to educate workers about how to access what we’re calling “fear-free” tax and money advice. We believe one of the most important ways we can help informal workers is by helping them to transition into the formal economy. One way of doing this is to provide the supports they need to be able to file their taxes as a self-employed person.

Through financial coaching and outreach that is nonjudgmental and takes a harm-reduction approach, we can help informal workers be more comfortable seeking help and more informed about the benefits of filing a tax return. The benefits to informal workers include access to retirement savings through CPP, earnings protection through EI, documented income if they are seeking a mortgage or other loan and, most significantly, substantial cash refunds from the Canada Workers Benefit, GST/HST credits, and the Ontario Trillium benefit.

As picturesque and romantic as it seems, we don’t want to live in the world of Downton Abbey as it results in an unjust economy. Toronto is becoming two cities: a community of wealthy and comfortably middleclass spenders, and the growing underclass of low-wage and informal workers who serve them. Thanks to our supporters, funders, and team members, we’re working on reaching these workers to help them access all the benefits they’re entitled to, while also doing research we hope will contribute to broader structural change.

Claire-Hélène Heese-Boutin is a community development coordinator with West Neighbourhood House.  Her work focuses on ecological economics, poverty reduction, cooperative economies and social finance.

As writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie notes, there is always “the danger of a single story.” Every story has multiple layers, especially one that is driven by numbers. Once we discover the nuanced layers of a troubling story — that’s when we can start to create solutions.

Gender-based analysis and intersectionality can help us discover the nuanced layers behind the story of Toronto’s working poor. Theorized by legal scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw, intersectionality asserts that each of us has multiple identities. And how those identities and social locations intersect impacts our lives.

As the Metcalf report notes, employment outcomes of racialized women are worse than they are for White men. Through our work at YWCA Canada we see how anti-Black racism, anti-Indigenous racism, xenophobia and sexism, hold women back from obtaining employment and advancing in their careers.

As a South Asian woman with over 20 years’ experience in the feminist movement, I regularly see how these dynamics play out. A woman describes landlords who demand sexual favours from tenants in exchange for substandard housing. Another woman recounts how employers take advantage of her immigration status and refuse to pay her minimum wage. One woman from a remote community told me she had to take three different buses to her job; one day she was fired after missing work due to a snowstorm.

These are not isolated situations. The reality is that people doubt the serious challenges women face accessing housing and employment. Many people question if there are any issues at all. Homelessness is often hidden. For women, homelessness may look like couch surfing or staying at shelters. This rarely shows up in official statistics. One way of addressing these challenges is to create policy frameworks that put historically disadvantaged groups — women and racialized people — right at their centre.

That’s why YWCA Canada and its Member Associations advocated for at least 25% of investments in the National Housing Strategy — a $40 billion commitment over the next 10 years to strengthen housing supply — be focused specifically through a gender lens.

We also need to apply a gendered lens then we think of policy prescriptions to address the rising rate of working poverty. Take employment insurance, for example. It is an important component of Canada’s social safety net that provides temporary income support for unemployed workers while they search for work or re-skill. The world of work is shifting rapidly and unfortunately the employment insurance program has not kept up. Women, especially Indigenous, racialized, and newcomer women, are over-represented in short-term, contract, and seasonal work. People in these types of precarious jobs often face challenges accessing EI because they haven’t worked enough hours to meet the eligibility criteria. That’s why we are calling for a national universal eligibility threshold of 360 hours.

I have the distinct privilege of working with Black feminists at YWCAs across the country. These colleagues are on the front lines in the battle for the working poor and equity in Canada. They have taught me that it is important to distinguish anti-Black racism to get at the root causes of issues.

I recently met with a Black mothers’ group who spoke to me about the impact of racial profiling by child protection services. The disturbing practice of policing of Black mothers in their own homes speaks to how structural anti-Black racism dehumanizes Black women and their families.

Stapleton’s report notes that working poverty among Black Canadian-born females “rose from 9.7% in 2006 to 12.2% in 2016.” The numbers do not tell the full story. A deeper dive is required. It is important to ask “why?” We know that Black women are disproportionately profiled by retailers, private businesses, police and transportation sectors. If Black women are experiencing daily profiling, how does that bias play a role in hiring discrimination? Moreover, Black mothers are disproportionately investigated by child protection services. How can a mother escape poverty if she is constantly fighting battles with child protection?

Educational research documents that schools dissuade black students from going to university — something I have witnessed firsthand as a former youth worker. If an education system actively demeans Black students, how does this limit their access to well-paying jobs in growing occupations?

Drs. Hope and James remind us of the principle of ‘do less harm’ and the consequences of the misinterpretation of data (page 36). Ultimately to solve working poverty, we must take an intersectional approach that puts diverse women and equity-seeking communities at the centre. Then and only then can we can find policy solutions that put the needs of marginalized communities first and ensure no one is left behind.

Maya Roy is the CEO of YWCA Canada, the oldest women’s organization in the country. In 2020, YWCA Canada will be celebrating its 150^th year anniversary. YWCA Canada is the nation’s largest provider of housing and shelter services for women and girls. Maya Roy holds a MSc in Social Policy and Planning from the London School of Economics and Political Science. In 2019, she was named Canada’s Top 40 Under 40 and one of the World Economic Forum’s Young Global Leaders.

References

Crenshaw, K. (1991). Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence Against Women of Color. Stanford Law Review, 43(6), 1241-1299. Retrieved from: https://www.jstor.org/stable/1229039?seq=1

Poon, O.Y., Squire, D., Kodama, C., Byrd, A., Chan, J., Manzano, L., Furr, S., & Bishundat, D. (2015). A Critical Review of the Model Minority Myth in Selected Literature on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders in Higher Education. Review of Educational Research, 20(10), 1-34. Retrieved from: convention.myacpa.org