Archive for the ‘Social Security Policy Context’ Category
OAS savings could turn out to be costly
Sunday, April 1st, 2012
Mar 27 2012
If OAS had been denied to all 65 and 66 year olds in 2011, the overall costs of OAS would have dropped by about $4 billion. But because OAS is included in taxable income, there would also have been a drop of roughly $500 million in federal income taxes and a $300 million decline in provincial income taxes… Further, because these seniors (the 65 and 66 year olds) would have lower disposable incomes and hence less money to spend, there would be over a $100 million drop in federal GST and almost a $200 million drop in provincial sales and other commodity taxes and health premiums.
Tags: budget, pensions, poverty
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Fending off Canada’s pension crisis
Sunday, April 1st, 2012
Mar 18 2012
… we propose a voluntary pooled target-benefit pension plan (PTBPP). It involves commingling assets across all participating workplaces to maximize scale efficiencies in investment and to manage actuarial risk. Employers’ matching contributions would be mandatory but fixed, as in a defined-contribution plan. As with the PRPP, it would be available to individuals and the self-employed… upon retirement, members could expect a benefit within a target range, depending on market performance… On balance, the proposed PTBPP would provide better pension coverage, cost efficiency and retirement income security for plan members than would PRPPs or most current private group or individual plans.
Tags: budget, ideology, pensions
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Ontario targets the poor by freezing welfare and delaying child benefit increase
Tuesday, March 27th, 2012
Mar 26 2012
“We are not prepared to balance this budget on the backs of families who may find themselves in difficult circumstances . . . or on the backs of our children,” McGuinty said. He then proceeded to do exactly what he’d said he wouldn’t by announcing that Ontario’s welfare rates will be frozen at their already lamentable level. Even worse, poor children will be denied a $100 payment they were to receive next year… McGuinty is wrong to freeze welfare rates, including for the disabled, as the cost of necessities jumps…
Tags: budget, featured, ideology, poverty, standard of living
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Old Age Insecurity?
Monday, February 27th, 2012
Feb.27, 2012
Low-income seniors will be hardest hit by increasing the age of entitlement for Old Age Security, since they rely on that program for most of their income and they have a lower lifespan than middle- and upper-income Canadians. If the federal government goes ahead with that ill-considered change, then at least it should provide an income benefit to poor seniors aged 65 and 66 so that they do not have to keep working or remain on welfare for two more years.
Tags: budget, pensions, poverty, standard of living
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Finley defends pension reform but does not address poverty concerns
Wednesday, February 22nd, 2012
Feb. 21, 2012
The federal government is stepping up its rhetoric to justify plans to cut public pension benefits, but remains silent on how it will address seniors’ poverty… Government officials have made it clear that when cabinet ministers talk about reforming old age security, they are lumping in the guaranteed income supplement with the basic benefit that delivers about $500 a month to 98 per cent of Canadians over 65… Unless Ottawa takes steps to separate the top-up from the basic old age security benefit, poor seniors would stay on provincial welfare rolls for an extra two years.
Tags: ideology, pensions, poverty, standard of living, tax
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Fix CPP, not OAS, to head off a pension crisis
Tuesday, February 21st, 2012
Feb 20 2012
Making sure that Canadian workers can retire in comfort is possible in only two ways: Require workers to contribute more of their employment income to pension plans, or require workers to stay employed longer… However, increasing the age of eligibility for OAS from the current 65 will not accomplish either. Workers do not contribute to the OAS, and it is paid to all, not only workers. So increasing its age of eligibility will not increase the retirement security of older Canadians, but rather make it more precarious.
Tags: economy, pensions, standard of living, tax
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How to destroy a good poverty line
Wednesday, February 15th, 2012
Feb. 14, 2012
The MBM [market basket measure]… is intuitive and easily understood because it is based on the actual cost of basic goods and services… a simple and uncomplicated way to describe poverty, and they were so much simpler to understand than the Statistics Canada low-income cut-offs (or LICOs) traditionally used by most poverty analysts… Regrettably, we are forced to recommend – once again – that the MBMs not be used until they are fixed.
Tags: budget, housing, ideology, poverty, standard of living
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America’s ‘Food Stamp Nation’ continues to grow
Saturday, February 11th, 2012
Feb 11 2012
In 2006, there were 26.7 million people on food stamps in America. By September 2011, that number had grown to a record 46.3 million, bigger by far than Canada’s population of 33 million, and equal to that of Spain. In fact, if the Americans using food stamps constituted a country, they would be the 27th largest nation in the world… Anyone in America can apply for food stamps, technically known as the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), and millions do… To be eligible, an individual must not make more than $14,088 per year.
Tags: budget, ideology, poverty, standard of living
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Let’s debate OAS based on fact, not perception
Monday, February 6th, 2012
Feb. 06, 2012
OAS is taxable income, so a lot of the moneys paid out go straight back to Ottawa… If your income exceeds $67,668, then you lose your OAS at a 15-per-cent clawback rate. If you have income of $110,123 or more, you get no OAS at all… It’s well known that wealthy Canadians live longer than poorer Canadians… So two key questions need to be addressed. First, is raising the age of eligibility for OAS really necessary, or is the system sustainable as is? Second, how does one justify a public policy shift that’s so clearly regressive in its impact?
Tags: budget, pensions, poverty, standard of living
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Poverty costs Alberta up to $9.5B a year, report suggests
Monday, February 6th, 2012
February 6, 2012
In a report being released today, Vibrant Communities Calgary estimates poverty costs the Alberta government between $2 billion and $2.4 billion and the overall Alberta economy between $5.1 billion and $7.2 billion – for a total of up to $9.5 billion annually. “This big $9 billion number doesn’t include the cost the government pays in social services or subsidies,” said Dan Meades, director of Vibrant Communities Calgary. “We were kind of surprised this was the number of just the external cost of poverty and it’s that big. We were surprised nobody fixed this yet.”
Read more: http://www.calgaryherald.com/business/Poverty+costs+Alberta+year+report+suggests/6107166/story.html#ixzz1lcBt5BTd
Tags: budget, economy, ideology, poverty, standard of living
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