Archive for the ‘Social Security Policy Context’ Category
« Older Entries | Newer Entries »
Why our outdated pension plans need a fix now
Tuesday, January 26th, 2016
Ontario is now going its own way… the biggest new social program in a generation: 4 million working members and $6 billion in annual contributions will make the pension an economic powerhouse once it peaks… Despite the shrill anti-pension rhetoric, recent polling shows that 70 per cent of Ontarians strongly support the ORPP’s goals… Given that two-thirds of Ontarians lack a workplace pension, and CPP payouts average a skimpy $6,900 a year, broad public support for reform is hardly surprising.
Tags: economy, ideology, jurisdiction, participation, pensions, standard of living
Posted in Social Security Policy Context | No Comments »
What the poverty advocates forget about Canada’s flirtation with a basic income
Tuesday, December 8th, 2015
A basic income is also popular with some socialists and do-gooders, who see in it the chance of eliminating poverty outright. But the very merits of a minimum income make it difficult to test… Will we really just be able to dismiss all the social workers, all the outreach agencies and urban homelessness fighters? That seems to be part of the idea in Finland, whose centre-right prime minister has talked of “simplifying the social security system.”
Tags: budget, featured, ideology, participation, poverty, standard of living
Posted in Social Security Policy Context | 1 Comment »
Queen’s Park is failing hungry Ontarians
Thursday, November 26th, 2015
“Social assistance is simply too low” … half of the people on welfare or disability supports rely on food banks. “People are being as generous as they can be… but the government is relying on the goodwill and generosity of volunteers to do what the government needs to do.” There’s no dignity in it, there’s no health in it. They shouldn’t have to, not for food, in one of the wealthiest countries on earth.
Tags: budget, featured, Health, housing, ideology, mental Health, participation, poverty, standard of living
Posted in Social Security Policy Context | No Comments »
2015 Report Cards on Child and Family Poverty in Canada: Let’s End Child Poverty for Good.
Tuesday, November 24th, 2015
Campaign 2000 presents the latest statistics on child and family poverty and outlines how it impacts on multiple dimensions of children’s lives – including health, mental health, educational achievement and future employment opportunities… Key Findings… Child poverty has increased since 1989: from 15.8% to 19% today; 40% of Indigenous children live in poverty. 37% of children in poverty reside in households with full time, full year employment.
Tags: budget, child care, featured, Health, ideology, participation, poverty, standard of living, youth
Posted in Social Security Policy Context | 2 Comments »
Ottawa must get serious about poverty reduction
Thursday, October 29th, 2015
… the proposed Canada Child Benefit will boost child-related payments for low- and modest-income families… The Working Income Tax Benefit… helps the working poor and should be strengthened. The federal minimum wage should also be increased… further increases to the Guaranteed Income Supplement for single seniors… A federal basic income program, modelled on the GIS, could replace welfare for low-income persons with disabilities, with resulting savings for the provinces and territories…
Tags: disabilities, economy, featured, ideology
Posted in Social Security Policy Context | 2 Comments »
Nortel’s painful pension lessons
Wednesday, October 21st, 2015
This spring, a panel of Canadian and American judges made a courageous and ground-breaking decision. They required all creditors to share the remaining assets with the pensioners, an almost unheard-of concession in bankruptcies. Until now many pensioners receive nothing as a result of their employers’ bankruptcy… our appeal is this: Accept the settlement and at the same time join the many voices fighting for pension reform in Canada
Tags: economy, pensions, rights, standard of living
Posted in Debates, Social Security Policy Context | No Comments »
Stop clawing back child support payments from social assistance recipients
Monday, September 14th, 2015
Clawing back child support payments when families are already living in such dire circumstances is unacceptable. Ontario needs to change its rules… The average child support payment for two children living on social assistance is only $300 per month. Contrast that cost to the financial benefits of lifting children out of poverty… allowing parents to hold onto at least a portion of child support payments… should be done immediately.
Tags: budget, featured, ideology, poverty, standard of living, tax
Posted in Social Security Policy Context | 1 Comment »
Stephen Harper’s anti-pension obsession hits Ontarians
Saturday, July 18th, 2015
Astonishingly, the Harper government will refuse to collect pension deductions on Ontario’s behalf or provide any information to assist the plan — services for which it would have been fairly compensated by the province… The result of the PM’s partisan tantrum? Higher accounting and compliance costs for business, and additional government funding made necessary by the same federal Tories who always claim to be reducing red tape and cutting waste.
Tags: ideology, jurisdiction, pensions, poverty, standard of living, tax
Posted in Social Security Policy Context | 1 Comment »
Let’s stop pretending we can’t end poverty
Sunday, July 5th, 2015
The assumption is that we can’t afford to. Are we sure? What would it cost exactly? Answer: about $16 billion a year in today’s dollars. Big money. Yet nowhere near as much as it is costing us now to keep it going… we could reduce the societal cost of poverty by $6 billion per year by replacing the existing anti-poverty programs with a guaranteed annual income for all… despite the clear moral and economic arguments in favour of a guaranteed annual income, the idea remains outside of the politics of the possible. Why?
Tags: budget, economy, featured, ideology, participation, poverty, standard of living, tax
Posted in Social Security Policy Context | No Comments »
Old anti-poverty idea — guaranteed minimum income — getting new life in Alberta
Tuesday, June 9th, 2015
Canada has been a leader in this kind of experimenting, but it has been four decades since the last large scale effort, when everyone in Dauphin, Manitoba, was guaranteed a minimum income as a test case. The program ended without an official final analysis, but Evelyn Forget, an economist at the University of Manitoba, did her own analysis and found minor decreases in work effort but larger benefits on various social indicators, from hospitalizations to educational attainment.
Tags: budget, disabilities, featured, ideology, poverty, standard of living
Posted in Social Security Policy Context | No Comments »
Recent Comments