Over 40,000 Nova Scotian children lived in poverty in 2023, new report finds

One-in-five children in Nova Scotia are living in poverty.

That’s the biggest takeaway from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives-Nova Scotia (CCPA-NS) 2025 report card on child and family poverty in the province, which analyzes the most recently available tax-filer data to identify gaps within our system. The report was released on Wednesday, Feb. 18, alongside partners Campaign 2000 and Fed Family Lab.

This report is dropped days after Brendan Maguire, the minister of education, announced that the province will not meet it’s $10-a-day childcare deadline on March 31.

According to the report, 22.7 percent of children within the province (40,210) lived in poverty in 2023—a 4.6 percent decrease from 2022, but still leaving Nova Scotia with the third-highest rate of child poverty out off all the provinces, and the fifth-highest including the territories. It has the highest rate of child poverty within Atlantic Canada, with New Brunswick at a close second (21.9 percent).

Child poverty is higher within sole parent households at 48.7 percent. It is also higher within racialized, immigrant and Indigenous families. 28.9 percent of racialized children were identified as low-income, with immigrant chilren at 33.1 percent, on-reserve Indigenous children at 43.5 percent, and off-reserve Indigenous children at 22.4 percent.

Accoding to the report, 38 percent of children in Nova Scotia are living in food-insecure households. Findings from 2023 tax filings also reveal that, without government benefits, 38.4 percent of children would be living in poverty in Nova Scotia.

While child poverty is often higher in urban environments due to higher costs of living, rural Nova Scotia also experiences high poverty rates, according to the report’s findings. It states rural Nova Scotia has the highest rates of child poverty in rural geographies, in particular. Annapolis has the worst rate by percentage at 35 (1140 children), followed by Digby at 34.6 percent (930) and Queens at 31.7 percent (520). For comparison, the child poverty rate in Halifax is 18.9 percent (15,610 children).

The report ends with several recommendations: for the province to establish a Poverty Elimination Plan for Nova Scotia, to increase family income through higher assistance rates and the Nova Scotia Affordable Living Tax Credit, raising the minimum wage to $20 per hour, and strengthening labour standards.

A full list of CCPA-NS’s reccomendations, as well as the methodology and even more stats on child poverty in the province, is available in the 2025 report card.