Saskatchewan scores D on poverty report card: Food Banks Canada

A recent report from Food Banks Canada has handed Saskatchewan a grade of D on its poverty report card, behind the national average of D+.

A recent report from Food Banks Canada has handed Saskatchewan a grade of D on its poverty report card, behind the national average of D+.

Only British Columbia (D+), Manitoba (C-), Quebec (B-) and Prince Edward Island (C-) rank above while Alberta remains tied with Saskatchewan.

The province’s poverty landscape is “unique” according to the report – given that 42 per cent of Saskatchewan’s population lives in either Regina or Saskatoon and 16 per cent of the population is Indigenous.

“While economic challenges such as housing affordability and rent inflation are prevalent across the prairies, Indigenous communities in Saskatchewan are disproportionately affected by increasing housing costs,” the report says.

The report is broken into four sections: Experience of Poverty, Poverty Measures, Material Deprivation, and Legislative Progress.

For experience and poverty measures, the province received a D-.

A key contributor to the score is the fact that 49.3 per cent of respondents feel worse off compared to last year. Saskatchewan is nearly tied with Alberta as the second worst in the country in the category behind Nova Scotia.