Archive for the ‘Social Security’ Category
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Welfare in Canada 2017
Thursday, November 29th, 2018
The Welfare in Canada reports look at the total incomes available to those relying on social assistance (often called “welfare”), taking into account tax credits and other benefits along with social assistance itself. The reports look at four different household types for each province and territory. The reports are a continuation of the Welfare Incomes series originally published by the National Council of Welfare
Tags: budget, disabilities, economy, jurisdiction, poverty, standard of living
Posted in Social Security History | No Comments »
Ontario’s social assistance reforms hint at direction, offer few specifics, and have problematic implications
Thursday, November 29th, 2018
What was entirely missing from the government’s announcement was any rationale for this change in incentive structure. We’re left to wonder whether there is any good reason to change the pattern of incentives so those working fewer hours are better off, but those working more hours are worse off… Only the tiniest fraction of ODSP recipients could possibly ever work under the proposed new definition, so the higher exemption levels will likely apply to almost no one.
Tags: budget, disabilities, ideology, participation, poverty, standard of living
Posted in Social Security Policy Context | No Comments »
There are danger signs in Ford government plans to reform welfare
Saturday, November 24th, 2018
The biggest change is redefining disability to more closely align with federal guidelines… This change will make it harder for new people to qualify for the Ontario Disability Support Program. And the obvious underlying suggestion is that there are people on the program now who shouldn’t be… once the changes take effect, every person who can be ruled ineligible for disability amounts to hundreds of dollars in monthly savings to the government
Tags: budget, disabilities, ideology, participation, poverty, standard of living, tax
Posted in Social Security Policy Context | No Comments »
The lessons of Harry Leslie Smith: The fight never ends
Saturday, November 24th, 2018
Harry lays out in pungent and unsparing detail what exactly it was like to be poor and hopeless when those things were considered ineradicable conditions or moral faults, not social failures that could be improved… he’s in a province, Ontario, that has just frozen the minimum wage and is skewering workers’ rights… Many people have heard Harry’s message. Acting on it, and honouring those memories – that’s something else.
Tags: featured, Health, housing, ideology, participation, poverty, standard of living
Posted in Social Security History | No Comments »
With welfare reform plan, Ontario PCs identify an area ripe for change
Friday, November 23rd, 2018
A single person on welfare gets up to $733 a month and a person on disability support receives $1,169. These are not sums on which a person can live. The Liberals had promised three-per-cent increases in both payments for three years. The PCs have increased them 1.5 per cent and have no commitment to do more. Boil it down and what we are left with is an assertion that the PCs can make the welfare bureaucracy more effective, combined with spending that will benefit the poor less than what the Liberals would have done. That’s not a lot to cheer about.
Tags: budget, ideology, participation, poverty, tax
Posted in Social Security Policy Context | No Comments »
New federal law creates official definition of poverty line
Wednesday, November 7th, 2018
The six-page bill sets targets of reducing poverty to 20 per cent below 2015 levels by 2020 and 50 per cent below 2015 levels by 2030. The target is based on a measure that lists 4.2 million Canadians as low income in 2015. Until now, discussions of poverty reduction have focused on three different ways of measuring poverty. Tuesday’s bill selects one of those – the market-basket measure – as Canada’s official poverty line… A third element of the legislation creates a national advisory council on poverty.
Tags: economy, featured, ideology, jurisdiction, participation, poverty, standard of living
Posted in Social Security Policy Context | No Comments »
New report Welfare in Canada, 2017 looks at latest welfare rates and how they compare to poverty measures
Tuesday, November 6th, 2018
The report looks at how welfare incomes varied across every province and territory for four example households in 2017… the report describes the components of welfare incomes, how they have changed from previous years, and how they compared to low income thresholds. The amounts vary in every province and territory
Tags: budget, disabilities, jurisdiction, poverty, standard of living
Posted in Social Security History | 1 Comment »
Job programs for 450,000 Ontarians on social assistance show mixed results
Thursday, November 1st, 2018
… the Ontario government needs to better tailor its job programs by emphasizing assignment to programs whose effects suit its goals… if the government’s strategy was to get people off social assistance, it could increase assignment to either job-search workshops or training programs, while if the aim is to reduce the probability of people returning to social assistance, they could focus on direct job placements.
Tags: budget, ideology, participation, standard of living
Posted in Social Security Delivery System | No Comments »
What Ontario can learn from the UK on reforming social assistance
Wednesday, October 31st, 2018
Over the past decade, the UK embarked on a series of welfare reforms with similar aims — to cut red tape while getting more long-term welfare recipients into sustained work. This paper summarizes the assessments of independent reviewers and auditors on the impact of those reforms and their value for money. It aims to identify lessons for Ontario as it pursues the same goals.
Tags: budget, disabilities, economy, ideology, jurisdiction, participation, poverty
Posted in Social Security Policy Context | No Comments »
Open Letter to Minister MacLeod: Five Principles for the 100-day Review
Monday, October 29th, 2018
We agree that Ontario’s social assistance system doesn’t work, and that ensuring stability and providing support are what’s needed in a new system. Despite some small positive recent changes, the system is fundamentally the same as it was twenty years ago. It is based on outdated thinking and outmoded ideas about what the programs are supposed to achieve. Its continuing inadequacy of benefits and focus on punitive and coercive rules is counterproductive and simply traps people in poverty instead of providing the supports they need to stabilize and move forward in their lives.
Tags: featured, participation, poverty, standard of living
Posted in Social Security Policy Context | No Comments »
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