CERB shows need for basic income program, says advocate
$2,000 a month would be a solid income, manager of Nourish Project says
The Canada Emergency Response Benefit has helped people with low incomes live better during the COVID-19 pandemic and showed that a guaranteed basic income is achievable, says the manager of the Nourish Project in Peterborough.
The federal government announced Tuesday it will provide eight extra weeks of benefits for people whose jobs or earnings have vanished because of the pandemic, but only if they look for work and take jobs when it’s reasonable to do so.
CERB will continue to pay out $500 a week, but now for up to 24 weeks instead of 16 for people who lost their jobs or saw their hours slashed due to the pandemic.
“It was amazing how the government could react so quickly and really stipulated that you need a minimum of $2,000 a month to be able to meet your basic needs,” said Joelle Favreau, manager of the Nourish Project, which aims to help people in need eat more healthy food through local eating, cooking and growing programs.
She said she would like to see a basic income through the government because people living on social assistance are living on a lot less.
“If you are living on social assistance, you live with an income way below the $2,000 threshold,” Favreau said. “Basic income is the idea that this $2,000 would be a solid income, so nobody can end up being below that.”
Previous studies have shown that people who have access to a basic income are able to eat better, she said.
This would also be true for people in a lower income bracket after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, who received the CERB.
“We (the Peterborough area) have a really high rate of food insecurity,” Favreau said. “I think that when people have better income they can eat better.”
Statistics from 2017-18 showed single mother, female-led households are one out of every two households facing food insecurities and often severe insecurity, she said.
One in three families with children under 18 are unable to bring good food to their table, she said, because of low wage jobs, precarious employment or pre-existing medical issues that impact earnings.
“The overall average, in terms of food insecurity is 16.5 per cent, so we are facing a really high rate in food insecurity,”
Favreau said. The strain that poor food puts on the body translated to a strain on the health-care system, she said.
“They start eating better, it helps their health and that is one thing that we have seen with COVID-19 — the correlation between the illness and poverty,” Favreau said.
“So many of our neighbours, friends, relatives are not healthy, and we fear with this crisis they will be much more vulnerable.”
A guaranteed basic income would allow people to get better housing, transportation and education to get new skills to be able to get access to employment, she said.
“It really provides people with dignity and an avenue to make better decisions for their lives,” Favreau said. “Compared to the system that we have right now, social assistance, which has really has created a poverty wall.”