By Haida Arsenault Antolick and Peter Driftmier
B.C. government policy leaves poor people no option but to eat poorly. With a social assistance rate that allows for a maximum weekly food budget of $26 for a single able-bodied adult, the only way to eat three times a day is to be malnourished and still remain hungry.
That’s what we found after accepting the Welfare Food Challenge that Raise The Rates issued to policy makers and the people of B.C. Raise The Rates is a B.C. coalition of over 25 community organizations including groups as diverse as the Kettle Friendship Society and our very own TSSU. In 2011, the coalition challenged B.C. MLAs to live for a month on the social assistance rate of $610. This year, Raise the Rates invited all British Columbians to attempt to eat for a week on $26 without depending on free food.
We were able to eat three times each day, but ultimately went over the $26 before the week was done. We ate quite a bit of processed white starches, very few vegetables, and very little protein. The highlight of the week’s food intake was probably the two days we split an apple for dessert.
Good health and choices are the first things that people on social assistance lose. Before we started the challenge, we made a meticulous grocery list and meal plan. We went on four shopping trips that week, each time trying to find the very best deal on past-their-prime veggies, instant noodles, and lentils. Since we both have bus passes, we were able to shop around to find the cheapest food. People on social assistance have no such luxury: the Raise the Rates mock budget allows for a maximum of 10 bus tickets, which would likely need to be saved for visits to the Ministry Office, and looking for work.
We both experienced headaches and hungry bellies each day, and came home from long days anxious to make our unappealing dinner to quell these pangs. We avoided physical activity for the week, but still felt drained and, at times, faint. We both felt cranky and impatient — side effects that had detrimental effects on our work and personal relationships. We experienced these health side effects after only one week on this diet, both having started in reasonably good health. Surviving on welfare for a matter of months or even years would certainly have a cumulative negative impact on one’s health.
In addition to losing control over their health and how they feed their families, people on social assistance lose their privacy and the public’s trust. The surveillance apparatus set up to closely monitor poor people’s personal and financial lives is beyond invasive. Folks on social assistance are systematically scrutinized by welfare workers, despite the fact that “welfare fraud” is less common than income tax fraud across all income brackets. Those on welfare are subjected to this routine scrutiny in addition to the various forms of marginalization that lead people to require social assistance in the first place. Oppressive structural forces such as colonialism, racism, patriarchy, heterosexism, and able-ism can all contribute to people being forced to turn to social assistance in order to subsist. Many people experience physical and mental health challenges that aren’t recognized by the state, making them ineligible for additional disability benefits.
The B.C. Government recently announced changes to welfare policy, which take effect this month. There are a few positive changes such as reintroducing the right to keep a limited amount of income from outside sources. Previously, the entirety of income from repaid debts, child support or part-time work could be clawed back, keeping people in a cycle of poverty. Yet, there is a new penalizing change: an increase from three to five weeks in the wait time between when applicants file for assistance, and when they can begin receiving it. Applying for welfare is a last resort; expanding the wait time is arbitrary, illogical, and punitive.
While welfare at some point arguably functioned as a social safety net, it now punishes people into criminalized work, such as informal vending, drug dealing, and sex work. Additionally, by allocating a laughable $375 of the total $610 for rent (has the ministry checked the Vancouver Craigslist apartment listings in the last 10 years?) the “welfare” system forces people into accepting unhealthy, and often unsafe, housing.
People on social assistance have been saying the rates are too low for decades. If rates had simply kept pace with inflation, social assistance recipients would have 50 per cent more money in their pockets to cover grocery bills and rent. After all, food banks first opened in this province around the same time that the government started cutting and freezing welfare rates, several decades ago. Now food banks are ingrained in our socio-economic system, along with other private food charities.
Calls for increased rates from people on welfare have long been ignored. Yet, the public seems willing to hear comfortable working class and middle class people confirm what poor folks have been saying all along, despite the fact that the Welfare Food Challenge is simulated, and experiencing it doesn’t approach the reality of what living on social assistance in B.C. is like. We need to reverse our society’s distrust of the testimonies, experiences, and policy-recommendations of low-income people.
Next time you’re considering making a donation to the food bank or volunteering at a charity meal, we suggest you also take a political stand on ending poverty: write or call your MLA and the provincial party leaders and ask that they raise welfare, disability, and minimum wage rates. Remind our government that we purport to be a society that cares for its members with a public social safety net instead of allowing this responsibility to fall to happenstance charity.
For more information on the Raise The Rates coalition, you can visit raisetherates.org.
