{"id":198487,"date":"2019-04-15T10:30:13","date_gmt":"2019-04-15T14:30:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/irpp-policy-options.local\/issues\/whats-true-cost-food-youre-poor\/"},"modified":"2025-04-14T04:44:10","modified_gmt":"2025-04-14T08:44:10","slug":"whats-true-cost-food-youre-poor","status":"publish","type":"issues","link":"https:\/\/potestlaunch.irpp.org\/fr\/2019\/04\/whats-true-cost-food-youre-poor\/","title":{"rendered":"What\u2019s the true cost of food when you\u2019re poor?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The average Canadian spends about $200 per month on groceries. This varies depending on where you live. In Toronto, for example, the price is closer to $254 a month, according to a Global News<\/a> analysis of Statistics Canada data. The City of Toronto<\/a> costs out a nutritious food basket for a single person receiving social assistance at $285 a month.<\/p>\n

Back in 1995, Ontario\u2019s then-social services minister David Tsubouchi produced a sample welfare diet as a way of arguing that people could get buy on diminished social assistance. We took another look at that diet last year<\/a>, and determined that the cost for a single person had risen from $90.21 a month to about $168, an increase of 86.3 percent \u2013 far ahead of both inflation and social assistance increases over the period.<\/p>\n

Then there are those who argue, as American author Todd Christensen<\/a> does, that with effort, selective buying, substitution, coupon clipping and superior cooking skills, one adult can eat a nutritious diet for as little as US$125 a month \u2013 about $166 Canadian.<\/p>\n

All of these estimates, from the lowest to the highest, are premised on assembling and preparing reasonably nutritious foods at home using basic ingredients. All of them ignore what we are calling the externalities <\/em>of food consumption.<\/p>\n

In the language of economists<\/a>, externalities \u201coccur when producing or consuming a good causes an impact on third parties not directly related to the transaction. Externalities can either be positive or negative. They can also occur from production or consumption.\u201d<\/p>\n

Preparing and safely consuming reasonably nutritious food depends on a number of externalities that most of us take for granted. Nowhere do they come into higher relief than when we consider the situation of single adults living on a very low income.<\/p>\n

This is important because Canada has announced the adoption of a new poverty line, and it is based on the Market Basket Measure (MBM), a measure of low income based on the cost of a specific basket of goods and services representing a modest, basic standard of living. The basket measure contains an exhaustive list of food \u2013 but none of the costs of food externalities.<\/p>\n

Consider six such food externalities that shape the true cost of food:<\/p>\n

Externality #1: Finding affordable food<\/strong><\/p>\n

For single adults receiving social assistance, having a car or a van is an exception; it is not the rule. This means that public transit, biking and walking are the normal modes of transportation.<\/p>\n

A sub-compact car \u2013 the smallest of the small \u2013 can cost 37 cents a kilometre<\/a> to run. Middle-income adults can use that car to comparison shop and get to supermarkets with a full array of nutritious food choices. Low-income adults are more limited in what they can access, depending on the transportation they rely on.<\/p>\n

Externality #2: Taking the groceries home<\/strong><\/p>\n

David Tsubouchi\u2019s 1995 welfare diet was premised on doing a month\u2019s worth of food shopping at a time. The weight of the welfare diet is about 56 kg. There are adults who weigh that much. The heaviest items include:<\/p>\n