Archive for the ‘Social Security’ Category
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Welfare rates now $200 a month below the Harris cuts of 1995
Saturday, January 6th, 2024
… inflation over two PC tenures since Bill Davis and Frank Miller has risen 35.2 per cent with no increases to Ontario Works and a total of just 12 per cent for ODSP. The last PC Premier to raise OW rates was Bill Davis 39 years ago in 1985… The cumulative effect of multidecade inaction — whether on housing or climate change — is now coming home to roost. Just look at food bank usage.
Tags: budget, featured, housing, ideology, poverty
Posted in Social Security Policy Context | No Comments »
Social-assistance rates in Ontario should ‘set off alarm bells’: Report
Thursday, October 5th, 2023
Researchers have found that being on social assistance in Ontario is correlated with a higher likelihood of poor health outcomes, homelessness, and food insecurity, among other things… In fact, the “Welfare in Canada” report finds that both OW and ODSP rates have been below the deep poverty line since 2008… “You show how you value people through how you budget.”
Tags: disabilities, ideology, jurisdiction, participation, poverty, standard of living
Posted in Social Security Debates | No Comments »
Governments should see social assistance as a solution, not a problem
Thursday, October 5th, 2023
Shouldn’t social assistance prevent poverty? At minimum, it should be a net that prevents people from falling into abject poverty. But it should also provide a ladder, something that people can use to help them up. By failing to deliver social assistance that performs either of these functions, governments are squandering the opportunity to improve people’s lives, their health, and, where possible, their ability to get and maintain paid work.
Tags: Alan Broadbent. Elizabeth McIsaac, featured, ideology, participation, poverty, rights, standard of living
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Bill C-22 will provide income security to Canadians with disabilities, but it needs to be done right
Friday, September 22nd, 2023
If the Canada Disability Benefit were to replace the disability tax credit while attempting to maintain most of the benefits currently available to higher income families, it would need to adopt low benefit reduction rates similar to the Canada Child Benefit… Taking Bill C-22 at its word, the Canada Disability Benefit should provide a large maximum benefit with reduction rates of one-third or more to make sure the target is those with disabilities who are poor and economically insecure.
Tags: disabilities, ideology, participation, poverty, standard of living
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Realizing the right to an adequate standard of living
Monday, September 4th, 2023
Everyone in Canada has a right to an adequate standard of living… having adequate food, clothing, and housing, and the continuous improvement of living conditions. [ICESCR – 1976] Maytree’s submission to the 2024 budget calls on the federal government to help people realize this right by strengthening income supports, investing in more affordable housing, and embedding human rights into social policies and programs.
Tags: disabilities, housing, poverty, rights, standard of living
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Social-assistance rates in Ontario should ‘set off alarm bells’: Report
Friday, August 18th, 2023
The province’s income-of-last-resort program pays so little that Ontario Works recipients must survive on just 37 per cent of the funds that would be required for them to have a roof over their heads, food in their stomachs, and enough money to maintain a very basic standard of living. That’s the conclusion of a new analysis of social-assistance rates in Ontario.
Tags: budget, disabilities, jurisdiction, participation, poverty, standard of living
Posted in Social Security Delivery System | No Comments »
To reduce rising crime rates, Canada needs to invest more in social services
Thursday, August 17th, 2023
Rather than continuing to spend on reactive models such as policing that do little more than criminalize poverty and disadvantage, we need to reinvest in preventive strategies that actually work. To prevent crime, governments need to invest more in existing social welfare programs and reestablish social services such as basic income… The provision of basic income and social services would both support vulnerable populations and be cost-effective.
Tags: crime prevention, economy, ideology, mental Health, poverty
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Welfare in Canada, 2022 is now available
Thursday, July 27th, 2023
This annual report… provides the welfare incomes of four example households receiving social assistance in a calendar year for each province and territory… Included are: The components of welfare incomes and their amounts; How adequate welfare incomes are relative to measures of poverty; How benefit amounts and adequacy have changed over time… The majority of households (29 of 53) saw below-inflation increases to their incomes, and so were not able to keep up with the rising cost of living.
Tags: jurisdiction, poverty, standard of living
Posted in Social Security Delivery System | No Comments »
Canada Child Benefit hailed for reducing poverty, as families get boosted payments
Friday, July 21st, 2023
In 2021, 7.4 per cent of Canadians lived in poverty, down from 12.9 per cent in 2016 when the benefit came into place… the “intensity” of poverty was also reduced… “But for those in deeper poverty, the benefit probably isn’t yet big enough to lift them up and over the [low income threshold].”
Tags: featured, participation, poverty, standard of living, youth
Posted in Social Security Delivery System | No Comments »
A significant milestone in lifting people with disabilities out of poverty
Tuesday, June 27th, 2023
This is a significant milestone, potentially the most important addition to Canada’s social safety net since the Guaranteed Income Supplement for low-income seniors was introduced in 1967… The CDB is desperately needed. About one in five Canadians live with a physical, developmental or psychiatric disability… The new benefit should, in theory, lift more than 1.4 million Canadians living with disabilities out of poverty.
Tags: disabilities, jurisdiction, poverty, standard of living
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