Ontario is promising to "lift 90,000 children out of poverty" with a five-year plan that includes increased benefits for low-income families and improved public education programs.

The Liberal government's strategy includes $300 million in new initiatives, and commits the government to reducing the number of children living in poverty by 25 per cent over five years.

It includes a $230-million annual increase in the provincial child benefit by the end of the five-year plan, which will provide up to $1,310 for each child in a low-income family.

Another $10 million will fund an after-school program for children in high needs neighbourhoods, and $6 million will be used to triple the number of parenting and family literacy centres in Ontario.

There will be $7 million a year to develop what the government calls a community hub program around schools to help respond to local needs to reduce poverty.

The plan also includes the previously promised full-day learning for four- and five-year-olds, and more skills training and mentorship programs for kids in priority neighbourhoods.

Premier Dalton McGuinty said Wednesday that his plan will be a "step forward," but not as big a step as the province would have liked to take.

Economy prevents more action: McGuinty

Tough economic times have hamstrung his ability to do more to help the poor, he said.

"It's one thing to begin to address poverty at the best of times, it's another to do that in the context of a global economic crisis," he said.

"If we had more money, we could have had a strategy that would attack poverty for everyone, but we'll start with children," he added later in French.

Poverty groups have said they want the province and Ottawa to make a commitment to cut poverty by 25 per cent over five years.

Ontario is the first jurisdiction in North America to set a specific numeric target, said Jacquie Maund, Ontario co-ordinator of the anti-poverty group Campaign 2000.

According to the most recent statistics, about 324,000 children in Ontario were living in poverty in 2006, Maund said.