Hamilton chosen as test site for basic income project
Provincial 3-year pilot to include working poor, homeless people
PREMIER KATHLEEN WYNNE came to Hamilton Monday to announce a three-year pilot project on guaranteeing people a minimum income.
The pilot will test whether a basic income plan “deserves to be adopted across our province,” Wynne said at LIUNA Station.
The pilot will have 1,000 low income earners in Hamilton, Brantford and Brant County, another 1,000 in Thunder Bay and 2,000 in the Lindsay area — where the pilot’s community impact will also be measured.
The pilot will cost $150 million — $50 million per year — and be evaluated by a third-party research consortium.
The total 4,000 participants in the three-region pilot will be sent an invitation to apply for it and will have to meet certain criteria, said Minister of Community and Social Services Helena Jaczek.
The pilot is not just for people on social assistance, she said, adding that 70 per cent of people with low incomes are working, but in precarious employment.
Karen Glass, Assistant Deputy Minister at the Poverty Reduction Strategy Office said people in shelters and even homeless people will be included.
The pilot will explore the effect of a basic income on people living on low incomes, whether they are working or not, Wynne said.
She said with the increased money under a basic income, it brings a single person to just under $17,000 for the year — and, while “it’s not an extravagant sum by any means,” she added that even that amount may make a real difference to someone striving for a better life.
Participants who work will get to keep what they earn, with their basic income payments decreasing by half of that amount.
Single people will receive up to $16,989 per year, less 50 per cent of any income they earn through work. Couples will get up to $24,027 per year, less 50 per cent of income earned. People with disabilities will receive up to an additional $6,000 per year.
In other words, participants can increase their total earnings by combining a basic income with income they earn through work. The basic income amount will decrease by 50 cents for every dollar an individual earns by working.
Wynne said the province chose Hamilton to participate because it is the right size, with the right mix of people, and because this community has done a lot of work in this area.
Last year, Hamilton city council
asked the Liberal government to do the pilot it announced in its 2016 budget here in this city.
Mayor Fred Eisenberger called the pilot “very timely, very important.”
He said “It’s going to be a great
opportunity … it’s the right kind of pilot to do at this time because the need is great.”
Michael Veall, a McMaster University economics professor, said he’s always glad to learn of experimentation and trial, adding “we
can learn a lot on how to design social assistance in Ontario.”
Tom Cooper, director of Hamilton Roundtable for Poverty Reduction, welcomed the pilot, but said it will “only scratch the surface of Ontario’s deepening poverty and should not be an excuse for inaction on other fronts.”
He is urging the government to also fix the “broken” social assistance system and raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour in Thursday’s provincial budget.
The pilot in Hamilton and Brantford, and in Thunder Bay, is scheduled to start in late spring and extend to Lindsay in the fall.
A similar pilot for First Nations is also being launched.