International Day For The Eradication Of Poverty Is Marked In Province

Some may find the timing ironic........The International Day for the Eradication of Poverty is happening just after the Occupy Wall Street protests spread to cities in this country including Saint John.

Jean-Claude Basque of the Common Front for Social Justice is hoping the protests might help to stop people blaming the poor for being in poverty. 

Basque also points out minimum wage workers have received, in the last six years, an hourly wage below all of the other Atlantic provinces. 

In September 2011, there were more than 25,000 households in the province and almost 41 thousand people on social assistance. The provincial caseload increased by 28 hundred cases since the 2008 economic meltdown.

In July 2011, the Common Front surveyed 22 grocery stores in the province and found between 2010 and 2011, there had been a 5 and three-quarters per cent increase in the cost of a nutritious food basket. A similar study last year discovered between 2006 and 2010 there had been a 21% increase in the price of basic foods.