Welfare improving, but not enough
Meagre 2% benefit hike, higher gift exemptions leave recipients in poverty
Ontario is making it easier for people on social assistance to keep gifts from family and avoid the need to deplete their assets before getting help, according to the budget.
The four-year, $480-million investment will raise asset limits, boost exemptions for cash gifts and increase monthly benefits for more than 900,000 Ontarians who rely on Ontario Works (OW) and the Ontario Disability Support Program (ODSP).
“People who are able to build savings are more resilient and better able to manage temporary financial setbacks,” according to budget documents explaining the changes.
Starting in January, asset limits for single people on OW will rise from $2,500 to $10,000 and go up for couples from $5,000 to $15,000.
For those receiving ODSP benefits, cash and other liquid asset limits will jump from $5,000 to $40,000 for individuals and from $7,000 to $50,000 for couples.
The exemption for cash gifts will increase from $6,000 to $10,000 a year for both ODSP and OW recipients, beginning in next September.
Gifts from family and friends used to pay first and last month’s rent, to purchase a principal residence or buy a vehicle, will no longer be clawed back from people on social assistance, according to budget documents.
“These increases will really matter in terms of creating resilience and ensuring people don’t have to be destitute before qualifying for support, and they are welcome changes,” said Jennefer Laidley of the Income Security Advocacy Centre, a legal clinic that supports people on social assistance.
“But government also needs to recognize that it hasn’t done nearly enough to address the deep poverty that people on social assistance continue to experience, particularly those who don’t work and don’t have family who can help them,” she said.
Laidley and other anti-poverty activists had called for a significant hike in social assistance rates, but the budget essentially flat-lines payments with a 2-per-cent inflationary increase.
“There is always more to be done,” Finance Minister Charles Sousa told reporters when questioned about the meagre increase. “We’re doing as much as we can right now.”
The increase means a single person on OW would receive an additional $15 a month for a total of $721, while a single person on ODSP would get an extra $23 a month for a total of $1,151. The rate increase takes effect in September 2017 for ODSP and October for OW.
Madonna Broderick, 60, who strug- gled with addiction and homelessness for 23 years until she went into recovery almost 17 years ago, has been on ODSP since 2008 due to serious health problems. She didn’t see anything to cheer about in the budget.
“Twenty-three dollars, are you kidding me?” she said about the rate increase. “That’s really sad. Just another disappointment from ODSP. I’ll be lucky if that buys me another piece of chicken a month.”
Broderick also scoffed at the government’s decision to allow people on welfare to accept more cash gifts from family and friends. “I don’t know many people on ODSP whose families can afford to help them. My family couldn’t afford to give me $1,000, never mind $40,000. So that means nothing to me,” she said.
Sousa also highlighted the government’s recently announced basic income pilot project in his budget. The three-year, $150-million experiment will give 4,000 adults under age 64 as much as $17,000 in no-strings-attached payments starting this summer in the Hamilton and Thunder Bay areas and in Lindsay next fall. The payments are equal to about 75 per cent of the province’s poverty line of $22,653 for a single person in 2016.
The pilot will “see if providing people with a basic income could be a simpler and more-effective way to ensure security and opportunity in a changing job market, support people living on low incomes and reduce poverty,” Sousa said in his budget speech.
In other measures to help vulnerable Ontarians, the budget is investing $667 million over four years to improve services for adults with developmental disabilities and their families, including funding to help an additional 1,000 this year participate in community programs and hire support workers. The increased funding to the program called Passport will raise the total number helped to 27,000 this year.
“Twenty-three dollars, are you kidding me? That’s really sad. . . . I’ll be lucky if that buys me another piece of chicken a month.” MADONNA BRODERICK ON ODSP SINCE 2008