According to a new report released in conjunction with Public Interest Alberta and Alberta College of Social Workers, COVID-19 pandemic has brought more children into poverty in the last year adding to an already terrible situation in the province.
Prior to the pandemic one in six Alberta children were already living in poverty and one in eight were already food insecure, but with unemployment skyrocketing to 15.7 per cent this past June those ratios have only worsened, says Joel French, executive director of Public Interest Alberta.
“Employment levels, in particular, impact single-parent families, but also all families where there has been a loss of income,” he said. “And certainly the shutdown of services when we are talking about children, particularly child care and early learning services, we saw before the COVID pandemic some significant cuts in the child care and early learning area from our provincial government in Alberta. Read more →
