Raise the Rates says MLAs accepting the challenge would be engaging in real action research and gain understanding
Anti-poverty activists are challenging British Columbia’s elected provincial MLAs to take a challenge and live on $610 a month—the amount they expect many individuals living on welfare payments to get by with. But they’re only suggesting the well-paid politicians live for one month on an amount that is described by Jean Swanson as “keeping people in dire, dire poverty.”
The coalition wants welfare rates increased to the equivalent of what they were in 1986. The $700 a month a person might have received in 1986 would amount to about $1,300 today, over double the current rate. The group also wants inflation taken into consideration when rates are set.
We speak with Raise the Rates coalition member Jean Swanson, who is also coordinator of the Carnegie Community Action Project.
