Archive for the ‘Social Security’ Category
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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 | 6 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 | 5 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 | 5 Comments »
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 »
Ottawa unlikely to rescue Ontario’s basic income pilot project
Wednesday, October 24th, 2018
Ontario’s basic income pilot project — seen as a key test of potential remedies to reduce poverty — appears destined to end prematurely as the federal government suggests it’s not going to rescue a program axed by the province… while… Ottawa is open to sharing data with provinces launching income initiatives, “ultimately the design of provincial social programs, such as a basic income, is up to provincial governments.”
Tags: budget, economy, featured, ideology, jurisdiction, participation, poverty, standard of living, tax
Posted in Social Security Debates | No Comments »
Cancellation of Ontario’s basic income project sparks global outrage
Saturday, October 20th, 2018
In Canada, all federally-funded social science research involving human subjects must adhere to strict ethical standards outlined in a 218-page policy document… The policy mandates respect for human dignity through three core principles of “respect for persons, concern for welfare, and justice”… Provincial lawyers may have inserted “escape clauses” in contracts Ontario’s basic income participants signed, but they can’t override basic ethics
Tags: budget, economy, featured, globalization, Health, ideology, jurisdiction, participation, poverty, standard of living
Posted in Social Security Policy Context | No Comments »
Social murder and the Doug Ford government
Monday, October 8th, 2018
In 1845, Friedrich Engels described the phenomena by which working-class residents in Manchester died prematurely because of their living and working conditions. He did not simply label the occurrence as we usually do today: “Premature deaths due to unfortunate circumstances,” but rather coined the term “social murder” to make explicit the source of these premature deaths. This extensive quote from his Condition of the Working Class in England begs careful attention in relation to the austerity agenda of Premier Doug Ford.
Tags: budget, featured, Health, housing, ideology, participation, poverty, standard of living
Posted in Social Security Debates | 2 Comments »
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