Young Men in Poverty – Canada

Young men the face of poverty in post-recession Canada: study, By Heather Scoffield, Winnipeg Free Press: “The recession has left a lingering bruise on an increasingly vulnerable sector of Canadian society: young, single men. As social scientists begin to dissect the effects of the downturn, they’re coming to the same conclusion Kerry Kaiser has reached intuitively, by watching the clientele at her downtown Ottawa food bank. ‘Single males are screwed,’ she said bluntly. ‘I don’t know why.’ She has an inkling, though. The young men who show up hungry on her doorstep are spending most of their welfare cheques on rent. They don’t get the benefits or the subsidies that governments have set up over the years for struggling families. And now, with low-skill jobs scarce in the wake of the recession, they can’t compete. ‘We see them getting it at all angles,’ Kaiser said. Her observation dovetails with the findings of John Stapleton, a social policy researcher who has just completed an exhaustive study of social assistance during the recession, for the Mowat Centre for Policy Innovation…”