Poverty and politics often make strange bedfellows. Poverty is often a central issue to many highly contested election campaigns yet the implementation of a viable reduction strategy is often hard to come by.

It seems as though Ontario is not alone in developing poverty indicators this year. New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg recently unveiled a new measure for gauging poverty measures in the city. The previous indicator calculated poverty levels by tripling the amount of money that an average family spent on groceries each year. The new measure attempts to be more comprehensive by including factors such as housing and child care expenses.

While I hardly believe that New York should continue to employ a poverty measure created with regard to the economic climate of the 1960’s, I am weary of using a more praising adjective for the newly developed plan as its application has already produced some peculiar results. In her recent New York Times article, Cara Butler noted that the new model ‘shows shifts in poverty in the city’s boroughs’. She characterizes Brooklyn and Queens as being ‘less poor’ than what is recorded in federal records.

By simply applying a new measure, New York’s most populous regions (combined population of approximately 4.7 million) are now less poor, in an instant.

I would be remiss, however, by failing to note the fact that Bloomberg’s new model factors in costs of living and social assistance. This has led the mayor to set the poverty threshold for New York at $26,138 for a family of four as opposed to the federal threshold of $20,444. With this new calculation Bloomberg purports that the poverty levels in New York are closer to 23% (as opposed to 19% calculated using the previous measure).

On its face, Bloomberg’s plan isn’t bad. In fact, a model that resists the often used ‘one-size fits all’ approach is refreshing indeed. What continues to nag me, however, is the ease in which statistics can be skewed and hard facts changed, all by applying a different standard of measurement.

Interestingly enough, Douglas J. Besharov, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute suggests that the measure works to artificially inflate the poverty levels of the city to keep ‘a lame-duck mayor in the public eye’. Enter here: the politics of poverty. While I wouldn’t extend my reasoning quite as far as Besharov, I must admit, he does present an interesting perspective.

One must question how prudent it is to accept a new poverty plan before considering the motives of the man behind it.

With his personal fortune estimated at a conservative $11.5 billion, Bloomberg’s media empire is the leading global provider of financial data. He retains 68% ownership of the company and has no plans on selling.

In 2006 Bloomberg announced a new annual commitment of $150 million to tackle poverty in the city. He created the Centre for Economic Opportunity to oversee spending and implement poverty reduction programs.

Oh, he also spent $42 million on his campaign; for mayor. According to his 2007 tax return released to the media on Friday, he lent $500,000 to an undisclosed golf club and has begun to rake in profits on commercial real estate on Madison Avenue. A perfect anti-poverty poster boy indeed.

                      Photo By: Edward Reed

After winning his election, Bloomberg set a five-year target to slash homelessness by two-thirds, however his measure for gauging poverty was unveiled only this July, more than four years after launching his ‘offensive against homelessness’. After pouring $710 million dollars into poverty prevention programs, the number of homeless families in New York has barely dropped.

Bloomberg should be applauded for recognizing that the federally established poverty line simply doesn’t work for a city like New York and the cost of living is keeping many residents below the poverty line. He has been widely criticized, however, for extinguishing New York’s middle class by doing nothing about it.

This course of action makes it apparent that the development of poverty indicators is no prerequisite to haphazard government spending. An analogous case can be found in Ontario itself – with the Ontario government funding the Ontario Child Benefit before settling on clear indicators and targets for poverty reduction.

Perhaps the bigger distortions can be attributed to the media outlets that continue to call attention to poverty issues but stop short of asking for change. For example, in January, the New York Times published a praising endorsement of Bloomberg’s under-publicized war on poverty while in the same article citing New York as leading the nation in income disparity. Recent articles have, at best, glossed over Bloomberg’s inability to tackle homelessness and to redirect more funding to the working poor.

Instead, the media has placed more emphasis on his rise on the Forbe’s Richest American List and his inclusion in this year’s Time 100.

The American media aligning their interests with a fellow media mogul is far from surprising. While this is no revelation, I do wonder about the lack of accountability the public has come to accept from major news sources.

Upon a cursory review of his professional and political history, it is apparent that Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s personal interests are inextricably linked to New York’s economy. Reconciling his wealth and business interests with his mandate to reduce poverty is no small order; however, it’s necessary to give substance to a poverty proposal of this kind.

The notion of transparency in politics may be too idealistic for our time. The notion of transparency in the media, however, may be too idealistic all together.

With the introduction of the Ontario Child Benefit that came into effect this past July much of the media has focused more attention on poverty in Ontario. The benefit (with a maximum payout of $50 a month) will provide some additional funding to low-income families with children under the age of 18.

Reading through the Toronto Star’s special piece War on Poverty – I continued to see the same committee being named as responsible for tackling poverty issues in this province. The Cabinet Committee on Poverty Reduction headed by Children and Youth Services Minister Deb Matthews is working within a 4-year mandate to fight poverty in Ontario.

The goals set by this committee are interesting in that they aim to break the cycle of poverty by reducing child poverty (hence the introduction of the Ontario Child benefit), but not before developing ‘poverty indicators’ to assess what indeed poverty means and to monitor the government’s progress on these issues. Apparently Ontario requires a team of politicians to decide on a common interpretation of the term as Canada purports no official poverty line.

While it is admirable that poverty reduction has been focused primarily on children, our most vulnerable group, the approach itself is somewhat short-sighted and perhaps even misguided. Of course it would seem reasonable to believe that to break the chain of poverty a government should provide young people with the tools and resources needed to succeed. It is, however, unrealistic to believe that a child’s poverty status can be thought of and dealt with separately from that of his or her guardian(s). I mention this point only because the funding of this benefit has resulted in funds being rerouted from Welfare (Ontario Works) and back-to-school and winter clothing allowances.

With more than one million Ontarians living in poverty it is commendable that the Liberal government has created a poverty reduction committee flanked with high ranking government officials. The roster of members itself has propelled poverty issues into the media spotlight. What is concerning, however, is the lack of discussion generated by the media coverage.

While the Toronto Star has waged its ‘War on Poverty’ it has not questioned why Deb Matthews and her committee have yet to provide Ontario with their ‘poverty indicators and targets’. It seems counterintuitive to roll out a new child benefit before an interpretation of poverty has been settled on and targets for reduction established.

I say this because funding to eradicate poverty in Ontario has been anything but sensible in the past decade. From 1993-2005 the Ontario Disability Support Program (ODSP) received no additional funding and Ontario Works (OW) was subject to major cutbacks. Social Assistance acts as the lifeline for many of the impoverished in Ontario yet it has received little attention in the past or in Ontario’s Poverty Reduction Plan. Organizations, including Ontario Coalition Against Poverty (OCAP) and the ODSP Action Coalition, provide well informed perspectives on this very issue.

These organizations have made laudable efforts to bring poverty funding issues to the fore. What I believe to be an equally pressing issue is the process by which social assistance is received.

Take for example an application for ODSP benefits. I was hard pressed to find any verified statistics on the granting of ODSP benefits on initial application. Any legal aid clinic in Ontario can verify however that the vast majority of ODSP applications are denied. The same can be said for internal reviews (the second step in the ODSP application process).

While searching for statistics, I did come across an interesting report written by, you guessed it, Deb Matthews. In her report on Employment Assistance Programs for Ontario Works and ODSP, she recognizes and recommends a streamlined ODSP process. She even calls for a reform of the appeals process because ‘a very high percentage of ODSP applications are denied, appealed and subsequently approved’.

This is not news. In 2003 Dawn Ontario published a summary of Forum reports which clearly laid out issues surrounding the application process and provided fair and realistic solutions. Five years later, the appeals process remains the same. Applicants are required to jump through hoops to obtain the ODSP benefit, sometimes years after they initially applied. It is evident that the appeal process is a thinly veiled weeding-out mechanism. After each rejection, fewer and fewer applicants appeal to the next stage.

What is often overlooked, however, is the fact that a large number of applicants have intellectual or mental disabilities. Requiring these applicants to abide by strict deadlines and complete confusing paperwork, repeatedly, may often help to abolish their chances of ever seeing the finish line. In effect, the process imposes bureaucratic impediments which require capabilities that might be lacking in its target population. Perhaps a tad counterintuitive? What seems to be a process that attempts to eliminate frivolous applications could actually be granting appeals in the most arbitrary of ways.

It is clear that the application process is a form of systemic discrimination which routinely diminishes the chances of receiving benefits for many applicants who don’t have the abilities to abide by the rigorous appeal procedures. It is shocking that these issues entrenched within the social assistance system have taken a back seat in the media and in Ontario’s Poverty Reduction Plan.

Perhaps Deb Matthews and her committee should take the time to develop indicators and targets to understand what poverty really is because it is apparent that many politicians are unclear as to where the real issues lie. And perhaps, the next time the media decides to wage war on poverty, they should do a little research and bring out the heavy artillery to encourage real debate and discussion of these issues.