Archive for the ‘Social Security’ Category
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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
Posted in Social Security Policy Context | 1 Comment »
‘Pay-for-performance’ poverty plan
Sunday, March 25th, 2012
March 11, 2012
“Governments can’t simply fund every demanded service without regard for the taxpayers’ ability to pay,” Finley said… “Governments can, however, facilitate and empower others to deal with social challenges.”… the government is considering “pay-for-performance agreements” in which federal dollars are only paid when clearly identified targets are met. Such an approach would have the private sector more involved in addressing social challenges and delivering innovative solutions…
Tags: budget, poverty, standard of living, tax
Posted in Social Security Delivery System | 1 Comment »
Poor can’t afford more austerity
Friday, March 23rd, 2012
Mar 04 2012
… “taxes” is not a dirty word. They are the price we pay for a civilized society, for maintaining our common life. We need to share the costs involved more fairly… The provincial government must accept its responsibility as part of this call to action, and it can use tax policy to both address the rich-poor gap and to provide urgently needed help to alleviate poverty… We need a broad spectrum of society backing the call for fair, feasible tax increases on the wealthy, and to counter the anti-tax fundamentalism that has gripped so many.
Tags: poverty
Posted in Social Security Debates | No Comments »
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
Posted in Social Security Policy Context | No Comments »
Harper’s pension cuts will hit the young hardest
Thursday, February 23rd, 2012
Feb 22 2012
Were Old Age Security a frill, this might not matter. But it is not. It provides a basic stipend of about $500 a month to people 65 and over — with all or some being taxed back from those who earn more than a net income of $69,562. Along with an add-on Guaranteed Income Supplement for the very poor, OAS is credited with vastly reducing the poverty rate among seniors… However, CPP doesn’t provide enough to live on for most. And some, such as homemakers, don’t qualify for this pension at all. An even more fortunate minority has recourse to employer-sponsored pension plans. But these are swiftly disappearing.
Tags: budget, economy, pensions, standard of living, youth
Posted in Social Security Debates | No Comments »
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
Posted in Social Security Policy Context | No Comments »
Pension deficits aren’t the fault of public-sector workers
Wednesday, February 22nd, 2012
Feb. 22, 2012
During those golden years, employers were making their pension contributions using money taken directly out of pension-fund surpluses. There was nothing strictly illegal about this. The surpluses legally belonged to them, just as deficits belong to them… Currently, a majority of Canadian workers do not have a workplace pension plan, and one-third has absolutely no savings set aside for retirement. The loss of supplemental pension plans would mean an increase in poverty among seniors, which in return would mean higher costs for the government in health care and social services.
Tags: budget, economy, pensions, rights, standard of living
Posted in Social Security Debates | No Comments »
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
Posted in Social Security Policy Context | 1 Comment »
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
Posted in Social Security Policy Context | No Comments »
Stephen Harper’s scary scenario about Old Age Security is wildly overblown, budget watchdog argues
Sunday, February 12th, 2012
Feb 11 2012
After parsing the numbers, Page concluded that the crisis is a manufactured one. “You cannot argue the government has a fiscal sustainability problem”… There’s talk of hiking the OAS eligibility age to, say, 67 from 65. Ottawa could also claw back more benefits from better-off retirees. Or partially de-index benefits that now rise to offset inflation… Making seniors wait until 67 for OAS could mean that the very poorest would have to wait longer to get the Guaranteed Income Supplement, a linked benefit. The cost of helping these neediest may then fall to the provinces.
Tags: budget, pensions
Posted in Social Security Debates | No Comments »
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