Newspaper media assignment:social issue in canada - Essay Example

The report recommends that equal attention should be paid to child poverty eradication in the good times and also in times of crisis undergone by a nation. Identifying the tax and transfer policies, the article comments that Canada’s tax and benefit strategies are more effective than other developed nations. The statistics of 24.1 percent child poverty rate before tax and benefits as compared to that of 25.1 percent in case of US while a rate of approximately 12 percent child poverty after tax and transfers for Canada (as against the 25.

1 percent for US in the same situation) support the above point to some extent. Therefore investments in social and health care services for children do make a difference with respect to child poverty. UNICEF therefore suggests Ottawa a policy of prioritizing child budget and therefore recommends Canada to increase the Child Tax Benefit to a minimum of $5000 annually from the present amount of $3485 and mark the amount to the inflation rate. Also, parents with children below 18 years should be permitted to hold back a greater share of their earned income.

Adoption of an official child poverty eradication policy with an initial target of 5 percent would help. The article serves as a starting point in having an overall idea about the situation of child poverty in Canada and provides a crude guide for framing of social policies in eradicating child poverty effectively with the help of a tax-benefit approach to the problem. However in my opinion, effective and consistent implementation will surely depend on the other economic parameters like inflation, GDP etc.

Hence economic policies to improve these parameters are also significant in addressing the problem of child poverty. Monsebraaten (2011) in his article presents the stagnant nature of the children living below poverty in Canada. The article refers Campaign 2000 a coalition devoted to eradicating the same problem