Archive for the ‘Social Security Delivery System’ Category
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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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Social Assistance Summaries 2014
Monday, March 23rd, 2015
… an advance viewing of 12 of Canada’s 13 provincial and territorial Social Assistance programs… A summary was prepared for each province and territory with input and feedback from government representatives in every jurisdiction. All reports include program descriptions and data on the number of social assistance cases and recipients dating… from 1997 to 2014.
Tags: budget, ideology, jurisdiction, poverty, standard of living
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Ontario set to replace welfare cheques with debit cards
Thursday, March 19th, 2015
… our plan is to introduce a single reloadable payment card program for ODSP and Ontario Works recipients who do not receive their social assistance payments through direct bank deposit to increase customer convenience for social assistance clients… reloadable cards are expected to reduce the reliance on expensive cheque-cashing services, remove the “stigma” of the welfare cheque and reduce the need to replace lost, stolen or damaged cheques.
Tags: poverty, standard of living
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Ontario pours another $5 million into problem-plagued welfare computer system
Thursday, March 19th, 2015
… the grand total of additional money the province has had to pay out for SAMS-related costs such as training, overtime, and additional hires for Ontario Works and the Ontario Disability Support Program, to just over $20 million. That doesn’t include the $242 million the province spent developing the system… when SAMS assigned overpayments to 17,000 clients, totalling $20 million, money the province and its municipalities have had to scramble to recover. The system has also caused some clients to receive little or none of their social assistance.
Tags: budget, poverty, tax
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It’s not just welfare computer system that needs a fix
Wednesday, February 11th, 2015
… a computer program can’t provide judgment on individual cases and penalize recipients for deviating from the welfare system’s complex rules. Nor can it make allowances for unforeseen circumstances: domestic violence, evictions, sudden changes in earnings, medical emergencies or funerals… The province must do better. First it has to fix the computer system. Then it must simplify the overly complex welfare system so it can be responsive to recipients.
Tags: budget, ideology, participation, poverty, rights, standard of living
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Annual earnings exemptions urged for Ontario welfare recipients
Thursday, January 15th, 2015
… allowing people on welfare and disability benefits to reconcile their earnings annually, rather than monthly, would encourage them to take on more work and free up welfare workers to provide more employment support… Under the B.C. changes, monthly income reporting continues, but deductions don’t kick in until a person’s annual earnings exemption is reached… “Why do we insist on monthly reconciliation for social assistance? … It only makes an already complex system needlessly more complicated.”
Tags: featured, ideology, poverty, standard of living, tax
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Welfare computer woes cost Ontario millions in overtime
Friday, December 19th, 2014
The new computer system, which is used to administer welfare and disability payments to hundreds of thousands of recipients across the province, has been plagued with problems since it was launched in mid-November… Dealing with clients who didn’t get their social assistance in time, arranging repayments for those who got too much money… and other functionality problems with SAMS, have left many case workers and supervisors frustrated.
Tags: budget, poverty, standard of living
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Same problems keep recurring in welfare computer systems
Tuesday, December 9th, 2014
Ontario has 14 separate rules governing who is automatically ineligible for benefits, eight sets of benefit categories, and 12 sets of rules that define dependency… The test of need includes complex rules surrounding liquid assets limits that vary by the presence of disabilities, family size and family structure with at least 42 separate rules that apply differently in three separate life situations… Add to this approximately 600 more rules defined in other regulations, directives and memoranda to administrators… let’s work harder on the preposterous over-complexity
Tags: budget, ideology, poverty, rights, standard of living
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Welfare in Canada 2013
Monday, November 3rd, 2014
In 2013, welfare incomes for single employable households ranged from 36.1 percent of the after-tax poverty line in Manitoba to a ‘high’ of 65.0 percent in Newfoundland and Labrador. Most of the other jurisdictions cluster around the lower rate… Welfare incomes for single persons with disabilities, while low, were slightly higher, ranging from 49.3 percent of the poverty line in Manitoba to 70.5 percent in Ontario… Welfare incomes for the four illustrative households typically ranged between 20 and 40 percent of after-tax average incomes.
Tags: disabilities, ideology, jurisdiction, poverty, standard of living
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Welfare in Canada 2012
Sunday, December 15th, 2013
This report focuses on the incomes of four different households living on social assistance, commonly known as “welfare”… the basic structure of social assistance is much the same across the country, even though the specifics may vary… There is no single or commonly accepted baseline, but rather several measures that typically are used for comparative purposes. The figures tell a powerful story about the adequacy of welfare incomes relative to the after-tax average incomes of Canadians.
Tags: ideology, jurisdiction, poverty, standard of living
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