Archive for the ‘Social Security’ Category
« Older Entries | Newer Entries »
Disabling effect of Ontario Disability Benefits
Thursday, September 1st, 2011
Aug 31 2011
It has been 20 years since anyone took a look at social assistance rates in this province, to which end a provincial commission has been on tour… The rates themselves are disabling… we don’t get enough money, period, end of sentence… [another] issue? “The quagmire of rules. You can’t keep track of them all… You don’t even know all the benefits you’re entitled to.”
Tags: disabilities, pensions, standard of living
Posted in Social Security Policy Context | 2 Comments »
‘Not enough money for rent, food and bills’
Friday, August 26th, 2011
25 Aug 2011
Bilodeau… is one of more than 800,000 people in Ontario receiving social assistance, such as Ontario Works or Ontario Disability Support Program ( ODSP) funding. He and four other people on social assistance… organized a group in early June to give the province’s social assistance review committee their stories and to suggest positive ways to change the system… The group was assembled to send recommendations to Frances Lankin and Dr. Munir Sheikh, who head the provincial review committee commissioned January 2011.
Tags: disabilities, participation, poverty, rights, standard of living
Posted in Social Security Debates | 1 Comment »
Welfare reform’s forgotten goals
Sunday, August 21st, 2011
August 18, 2011
… judging the effectiveness of welfare solely by how many people leave it is a bit like judging the success of a hospital by how many people leave it — without differentiating between whether they depart cured, ill or dead. A full analysis of welfare reform demonstrates a decidedly mixed bag. Some have been greatly aided, but others irreparably harmed… The law that Clinton signed gave governors, mayors and subsequent federal policymakers the tools to further change welfare dramatically, for better or worse. Most changes were for the worse, tightening work requirements and imposing penalties for noncompliance …
Tags: economy, globalization, ideology, poverty, standard of living, tax
Posted in Social Security Policy Context | No Comments »
The folly of benevolence
Tuesday, August 16th, 2011
Aug. 15, 2011
Australian philosopher David Stove’s What’s Wrong with Benevolence… is assertive… specifically, the benevolence of governments taken to its nth degree, its uttermost limit… Enacted in Elizabethan times, the Poor Laws originally gave succour to the poor, the sick and the elderly by means of a modest tax levied at the parish level. With the passage of time, the civic administrators noted a perplexing paradox: “It was found… that the proportion of the population receiving money under the [Poor] Laws (and consequently, of course, the burden on those who paid the tax) always increased.”
Tags: ideology, poverty, standard of living
Posted in Social Security Debates | No Comments »
Welfare still isn’t enough to live on
Monday, August 15th, 2011
August 15, 2011
“if governments had pegged rates to inflation, the welfare rate today would be $932 a month.” For all of Premier Dalton McGuinty’s talk when he was campaigning in two elections about raising the rates and getting rid of poverty in this province, his government has only managed to raise the rates by 3% or 4% over the years. As I said the rate is now at $592 and less then it was in 1993… In November 2010, McGuinty appointed a commission to do an extensive review of social assistance in this province… But… the final report will not be released until July 2012, long after the provincial election.
Tags: ideology, poverty, standard of living
Posted in Social Security Delivery System | No Comments »
Liberals eye hard-hearted fraud policy
Friday, August 12th, 2011
August 12, 2011
… welfare fraud, although “characterized as pervasive,” was actually “exceptionally low”… In 2001-02, the waning years of the PC government, convictions represented roughly 0.1% of the social assistance caseload… “Simply being on social assistance results in one being positioned as a penal object in a climate of moral condemnation, surveillance, suspicion and penalty. This criminalization is particularly gendered in that the majority of people on social assistance are women, and the majority of them are single parents.”
Tags: crime prevention, ideology, poverty, standard of living
Posted in Social Security Debates | No Comments »
Canadians must try to understand what it means to be poor
Thursday, August 11th, 2011
August 10, 2011
Knowing something –such as that many Canadians are poor –is one thing. Understanding the significance of being poor is quite another. If you can’t picture the suffering, you aren’t going to appreciate the imperative to help… the demeaning grind of poverty looks very different than it did in 18th century France, but poverty remains dispiriting and painful… how do we get to the point that the suffering around us caused by poverty becomes intolerable and we insist upon action? Our failure to reach that level of motivation is even more disconcerting now that the gap between rich and poor is growing…
Tags: Health, ideology, mental Health, participation, poverty, standard of living
Posted in Social Security Debates | No Comments »
A better way to pay
Wednesday, August 10th, 2011
Aug 09 2011
It is rare that administrative savings and the best interests of welfare recipients go hand in hand. Getting rid of paper cheques, which are increasingly expensive to administer, will save the city at least $1 million a year… For the some 35,000 welfare recipients who can’t get bank accounts, it will mean a welcome end to paying high cheque-cashing fees… Ultimately, the biggest problem with welfare is not the cheque itself but the sum, which is too low to live on with any dignity, and the punitive, rules-bound system that impedes a recipient’s transition to the workforce and self-sufficiency.
Tags: ideology, poverty, tax
Posted in Social Security Debates | No Comments »
Debit cards to replace welfare cheques
Wednesday, August 10th, 2011
Aug 08 2011
Toronto will soon become the first major Canadian city to permanently replace the iconic welfare cheque with a debit card, a move that will produce savings for both Ontario Works recipients and a government that is itself scrounging for cash. About 65,000 of Toronto’s recipients receive their payments via direct bank deposit. Many of the 35,000 who receive cheques do not have bank accounts, and many cash the cheques at payday lending outlets that charge high fees they can scarcely afford.
Tags: budget, poverty
Posted in Social Security Delivery System | No Comments »
National Commission on Community Health and Social Services #1
Sunday, August 7th, 2011
July 26, 2011
The Canada Council on Social Development is exploring a new initiative, a National Commission on Community Health and Social Services, and we are reaching out to request your advice on this special project. We encourage you to visit our website to review our proposal and submit your suggestions, ideas, and consider participating with us. On the site, you will find: the purpose and reasoning for a Commission; how the Commission will be organised; what can be achieved; and how you can become involved.
Tags: child care, disabilities, Health, homelessness, mental Health, multiculturalism, participation, poverty, standard of living
Posted in Social Security Policy Context | No Comments »
Recent Comments