Archive for the ‘Social Security’ Category
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Guaranteed income film will study 1 P.E.I. family
Wednesday, May 20th, 2015
In an experiment on guaranteed income, documentary filmmakers will top up the wages of a P.E.I. family living below the poverty line to examine what impact it has on quality of life… [with] plans to select a family each from Manitoba, Ontario and Nunavut… to start a dialogue about a basic income guarantee — the idea that everyone should have enough money to meet their basic needs and live with dignity.
Tags: featured, ideology, poverty, standard of living
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We allow poverty to exist
Friday, May 15th, 2015
One measure of poverty places five per cent of Canadians in its grasp. But this five per cent accounts for 50 per cent of health care costs. What does this tell us about who we are? Poverty is a social construct. It is the result of public policy. Yet, this policy can only exist because Canadians of all stripes allow it to exist… Yet, it is insane. We keep five per cent of our population in poverty and then pay an enormous price for our failure of compassion.
Tags: featured, Health, ideology, poverty, standard of living
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Reframe Canada’s social safety net as its social architecture so we can rebuild it before it crumbles: report
Wednesday, May 13th, 2015
A demographic storm has ripped through social architecture: in 1980, there were 14 seniors for every 100 workers, in 2013 there were 22 for every hundred. By 2056, the report says there could be 50 seniors for every 100 workers. Add in a debt-hobbled, over-educated generation in precarious work, fewer and fewer defined retirement benefits and more new Canadians… if we don’t fix the broken windows and leaky roofs now, he said “we’re likely to see increasing poverty and inequality, we could see a less productive economy
Tags: budget, economy, featured, Health, housing, ideology, participation, pensions, poverty, standard of living
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Could Alberta implement a living wage?
Wednesday, May 13th, 2015
Premier-designate Rachel Notley has pledged to raise her province’s wage floor to $15 an hour during her first mandate. That would catapult Alberta from the bottom of the national rankings at $10.20 an hour to the top, surpassing the current leader, Ontario at $11 an hour, by a wide margin… “It is simply unacceptable that in a province as prosperous as ours that hard-working Albertans cannot make ends meet,”
Tags: economy, ideology, jurisdiction, poverty, standard of living, tax
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The 2015 Deficit-of-Ideas Budget
Monday, April 27th, 2015
Budget 2015 is a wide-ranging document with a few good ideas, but not much for key social policy measures such as child benefits, which took the wrong route. Income splitting, enhancement of the Universal Child Care Benefit and boosting the Child Care Expense Deduction will be a waste of money. They represent a substantial bleeding of scarce funds that could be spent on the real challenges facing Canada, especially poverty and inequality.
Tags: budget, economy, featured, ideology, poverty, standard of living, tax
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Modest help for the poor in Ontario’s budget
Monday, April 27th, 2015
… 40 per cent of welfare recipients with partners or children will lose ground to inflation… The budget contained no assistance for municipalities struggling to meet the burgeoning demand for affordable housing. Nor did it provide funds to fix the deteriorating social housing it downloaded onto cities a decade ago… nothing to low-income parents who need subsidized child-care. This excludes single mothers from the workforce until their children start school.
Tags: budget, economy, ideology, poverty, standard of living, tax
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Next PEI Premier to Promote BIG!
Saturday, April 25th, 2015
It is welcome news that the next Premier of Prince Edward Island is committed to exploring a Basic Income Guarantee (BIG) program for Island citizens. It is understood that this will be in the form of a demonstration project of at least five-to-seven years. During the Leaders’ Forum on Women’s Issues held April 14, 2015, at Holland College, each one of the party leaders endorsed a Basic Income Guarantee program as a poverty reduction strategy.
Tags: economy, featured, ideology, poverty, standard of living, tax
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New safety nets needed for era of chronic inequality
Wednesday, April 15th, 2015
… The welfare state is a vestige of a bygone era. It traps people who want to lift themselves out of poverty. Tinkering won’t fix it. What is needed is a wholesale re-thinking of social policy… three social scientists drafted their blueprints for an ideal world, neglecting the four-year lifespan of governments, the weak job market, the unwillingness of politicians to embark on high-risk schemes with a distant payback, and the circumstances of people who can’t make ends meet.
Tags: budget, economy, featured, globalization, ideology, participation, poverty, standard of living, tax
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Canada’s social programs will suffer under balanced budget law
Sunday, April 12th, 2015
… policy design appears to have been based on an assumption that reducing the federal deficit and implementing social policy that improves Canadians’ well-being are mutually exclusive goals… income splitting… will benefit wealthy people while the majority of Canadians will be affected by the cuts to social programs or increased taxes needed to offset the projected billions in lost federal and provincial revenue in the coming years
Tags: budget, economy, ideology
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Ontario 211 receives $1 million to improve services for at-risk Canadians
Tuesday, April 7th, 2015
Ontario 211 will develop a new approach to meet the complex needs of vulnerable clients including: – Increased outreach with agencies to help raise awareness of 211 with low-income families – Additional follow-up with vulnerable callers to ensure they are receiving the proper support, and to help capture and measure long-term outcomes – Additional training for 211 specialists to better identify at-risk callers and help direct them to community programs and services that will make them healthier – An enhanced phone system to help callers talk to the best trained specialist sooner
Tags: budget, featured, Health, mental Health, poverty, standard of living
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