Archive for the ‘Social Security Debates’ Category
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Maybe now we can finally say it out loud — poverty is in decline
Wednesday, February 27th, 2019
… poverty tends to fall, and incomes to rise, in periods of economic growth… If the overall rate has dropped appreciably, it has fallen even more among children — especially welcome, given the lasting effects poverty can have on life chances. At nine per cent, it is down a third from just two years ago… That’s almost certainly due, at least in part, to the Liberals’ first and most significant policy reform: the rationalization of several existing child benefits and credits into a single income-tested Canada Child Benefit, with increased amounts going to low-income families.
Tags: economy, ideology, poverty, standard of living
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Ontario welfare changes far from being reforms
Sunday, January 27th, 2019
The government wants recipients of Ontario Works and ODSP to work. Curiously, it proposes substantially better financial incentives for people who are certified as disabled. On Ontario Works, the plan is to exempt the first $300 a month of earned income before any clawback, compared to the current $200. Beyond the basic exemption, the current clawback is 50 per cent. The proposal is to make it 75 per cent. That is an incentive to work?
Tags: budget, disabilities, ideology, participation, poverty, standard of living
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Ford fails to connect dots between the personal and the political
Tuesday, January 22nd, 2019
A million dollars of provincial funding that makes after-school activities possible in Toronto’s disadvantaged neighbourhoods has been cut… His government also cut a $3-million program to help young people with a developmental disability transition to adulthood… It’s a false economy… Doug Ford… can’t make the leap from wanting to help on a personal level to seeing the necessary role of government in assisting groups of people dealing with social problems.
Tags: budget, ideology, participation, poverty, standard of living, youth
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‘Humans are suffering’: Axing of basic income pilot project leaves trail of broken dreams
Tuesday, January 22nd, 2019
The Star and other media organizations have documented how participants have been able to eat healthier food, buy warm clothing, move into stable housing and enrol in college… In addition to the court challenge, mayors of the pilot communities, international researchers, the Hamilton and Thunder Bay Chambers of Commerce, 900 medical professionals and the CEOs of 120 Canadian companies have called on both Queen’s Park and Ottawa to continue the research project the remaining two years.
Tags: budget, disabilities, featured, ideology, participation, poverty, standard of living
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Meet the Economist Advising BC on Whether to Go Ahead with a Basic Income
Monday, January 21st, 2019
Throughout the 1980s and into the 1990s, much of the growth in income inequality in Canada was tempered with taxes on higher-income people and generous social programs… “Somewhere around the mid-1990s, the bargain broke down,” Green said. Governments at all levels rolled back social spending and made tax cuts, allowing inequality to grow unchecked… “In a society this rich we should not have people living on the street.”
Tags: budget, economy, ideology, poverty, standard of living, tax
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Dealing with deadly donation bins only scratches poverty’s surface
Monday, January 14th, 2019
An estimated 30,000 Canadians remain homeless on any given night. The federal government’s ambitious 10-year, $40-billion Reaching Home strategy – a plan to cut chronic homelessness in half while building 100,000 units and repairing 300,000 more – won’t be launched until late spring. And we’re yet to learn how provinces, cities and community organizations will partner in its wake to produce meaningful change.
Tags: homelessness, housing, ideology, mental Health, poverty, standard of living
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Re-instating basic income in Ontario would help raise children out of poverty
Friday, January 4th, 2019
Premier Doug Ford and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau need to reinstate the basic income pilot. It’s inconsequential whether the provincial or federal government takes the initiative; quite simply it needs to be done… The cost of the Ontario basic income model would be about $30 billion a year. Costs could be recovered by eliminating Ontario Disability Support Programs (ODSP) and Ontario Works Programs (OW) and by adjusting tax incentives granted to high-income earners.
Tags: featured, ideology, jurisdiction, poverty, standard of living, tax, women
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Hamilton couple with newborn prepares for wind-down of basic income
Friday, December 28th, 2018
Weiss never had the chance to go back to school before the province announced it was scrapping the project. They’re worried about losing their home without the extra income, which was up to $17,000 a year for individuals and $24,000 for couples, less 50 per cent for money earned. “Now we’re going to have to try juggling a newborn and finding the first things that come along,” Weiss said. “It’s increasingly looking like we just kind of have to give up on all the work that we were trying to put in.”
Tags: child care, economy, ideology, participation, poverty, standard of living
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Liberals say they are looking at ways to provide guaranteed minimum income to all Canadians
Friday, December 21st, 2018
A guaranteed minimum income means different things to different people, but at its core is a no-strings-attached payment governments provide instead of an assortment of targeted benefits. What it costs in additional spending, the thinking goes, it makes up in reduced bureaucracy for both the government and recipients… Federal officials have considered the idea as one of a wide range of possibilities to reshape social-safety-net programs for a modern labour market marked by automation, more short-term “gig economy” jobs and a need for people to retrain several times in their working lives.
Tags: economy, featured, ideology, jurisdiction, participation, standard of living
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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
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