If you live on welfare or disability benefits, you understand what it’s like to do without. If you live in a shelter, you know what it’s like to have no home. If you feed your kids from a food bank, you know the dull ache of hunger.

Marc Hamel is a money manager. What does he know? As it happens, he floored me with knowledge.

Hamel made the opening remarks at a recent conference in Halton region, where changes to provincial welfare rates were up for discussion.

He understands the economic nature of poverty, and he also understands that poverty is costing us money, although not in ways you might think. Here is some of what he had to say:

He noted a study done in Hamilton which shows that, if you’re among the poorest of the poor in that city, you tend to die earlier than the rich.

How much earlier?

Twenty-one years.

He said, “As a businessman and as a taxpayer, I am now beginning to understand there is a significant economic argument to tackle poverty.”

What kind of argument?

Hamel noted that those who live in poverty are sicker more often, and sicker longer, than people who are not poor, and that puts a burden on the health-care system. Here’s a direct quote:

“Someone living in the lowest quintile of income earners will use the health-care system 50 per cent more than the average person. This is as a result of higher stress, poor nutrition, substandard housing and an unstable social environment.

“Clearly, someone who can’t afford medication, or is homeless, or lacks a social support network is more likely to end up in the emergency room.”

This, from a money manager.

He said that the cost to the health-care system is somewhere around $3 billon a year.

Yikes.

He noted something that you, I hope, already know: if you live in poverty as a child, there’s a 20 per cent chance you will live in poverty as an adult.

His best guess, based on reading and research? “If we could help this 20 per cent with skill training and higher education, the income gain for Ontario would be $3.2 billion a year.”

He puts the total cost of child poverty in Ontario at anywhere between $4.6 billion and $5.9 billion a year. And then he talked about lost opportunity.

“If we were able to increase the income and participation of the lowest quintile of income earners, and raise their incomes to the second quintile, the benefit to the Ontario economy would be over $16 billion a year.”

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He also noted that, if we did so, there would be an increase in tax revenues of $4 billion.

But here’s the real money quote: “In total, poverty costs the residents of Ontario a staggering $32 billion to $38 billion a year — the equivalent of over 5 per cent of provincial GDP.”

Remember, he’s a money manager. He’s smarter about this stuff than I am.

And here’s how he closed:

“Imagine for a minute that you have an infection and go to see the doctor. The doctor tells you that you need 10 mL. of an antibiotic for 15 days to clear up the infection completely.

“He then prescribes you 5 mL. for 10 days. Sure, you might feel better a bit, but there is no doubt that you will need to be back for ongoing refills of the antibiotic.

“We would never run our health-care system this way and I struggle to understand why we are using this approach to tackle poverty.”

Hamel is not a bleeding heart like me. He’s got a money manager’s view of the costs of poverty.

He opened my eyes.

More to come.

Read more columns from Joe Fiorito.