Social assistance In Canada, provincial welfare levels vary substantially, but all fall well below poverty lines. Depending on the province, welfare couples with two children received from 45 to 73 per cent of poverty line income in 1993, and from 23 to 38 per cent of average provincial income. The lack of generosity in some provinces is surely related to high unemployment and lower prosperity. But it may also reflect a more punitive philosophy about why people need assistance and what role the state should play in their personal lives. Social assistance levels are higher in Europe than in North America.
Some governments also pay low-income mothers a benefit to care for their children at home.
Although entering the workforce could be complicated by lack of affordable child care, low minimum wages and high tax rates on mother's assistance benefits, several European countries either ensure that childbearing and child-rearing are not obstables to earning a living or allow new mothers to stay at home while they receive government benefits. Commitments needed In Canada, recent federal governments, in spite of election commitments to eliminate child poverty, have clearly lacked the political will to reallocate spending, reform taxation and arnend social legislation. Poverty rates are lower when social programs are universal, yet there are no plans to resurrect the family allowance. Minimum wages and welfare levels remain low, and few governments have done much to promote pay equity for women or to develop full-time jobs. In other words, there has been little attempt by Canadian governments, regardless of their party affiliations, to reduce family poverty.