TVO’s The Agenda visited Greater Sudbury on Sunday June 26 and engaged close to 100 community members in a dialogue to discern key questions for this fall’s election.
The number 1 question coming from the group was “In 2009 almost 1.7 million people in Ontario were living in poverty costing Ontario households up to $2,900.00 year in related costs to health care, education, housing, criminal justice and lost productivity. Eradicating poverty would realize billions of dollars in savings in all of these areas. What is your vision for an Ontario without poverty and how do you propose we get there?”
Listen to responses from representatives of the 3 major political parties. The poverty question was asked last, so the responses are near the end of the taping, starting around the 36:00 minute mark.
WINDSOR – The Windsor Star reports that Commissioner Frances Lankin addressed several critical issues about social assistance reform as she and Dr. Munir Sheikh launched their community consultations in Windsor yesterday.
Although indicating that the Commission would have to make recommendations to simplify a rule-bound social assistance system, Commissioner Lankin also pointed out that there is no rationale for how OW and ODSP benefit rates are set. The Windsor Star reports that Commissioner Lankin said, “It’s not rational . . . It’s not related to how much it may cost for shelter, healthy meals, clothing.”
She also challenged the “urban myth” that people can be better off receiving social assistance than working. Citing the rising numbers of working poor people, she expressed concern about the growing numbers of low-paying and part-time jobs.
The Windsor Star reports that Commissioner Lankin “said government cuts to welfare rates over the last two decades were made to encourage people to seek jobs. However, with the job market offering lower paying jobs, and families living below the poverty line, we may now be in a ‘race to the bottom.’ ”
Poverty Free Ontario has offered a structural analysis of the status of poverty in Ontario that points to the same problems with both inadequate benefit levels and a low wage job market. Action on PFO’s policy priorities would end deep poverty by 2015 for people on social assistance and bring general poverty down to 4% or lower within this decade.
Poverty Free Ontario urges the Commissioners to propose a clear strategy for raising benefit levels to enable people on social assistance to live with health and dignity and to address the poor quality labour market by recommending an increase of the minimum wage over a three-year period that will bring the incomes of earners working full-year, full-time above the poverty line.
Poverty Free Ontario plans to post local reports on the Windsor community consultations on Thursday, June 30.
Commissioners Frances Lankin and Munir Sheikh start their consultation visits this week. Their current schedule is as follows:
- Windsor – June 28
- London – June 29
- Hamilton – July 4
- Niagara – July 5
- Toronto – July 8, 14, 15
- Kingston – July 12 (tentative)
- Peterborough – July 13
- Thunder Bay – July 20‐21 (tentative)
- Peel – July 25
- Timmins – July 26
- Ottawa – July 27
The Discussion Paper and Workbook for the community consultations on the Social Assistance Review are available at www.socialassistancereview.ca. Communities not on the Commissioners’ schedule are invited to set up their own community “conversations” on the Review and to submit the results to the Commissioners.
Poverty Free Ontario also encourages communities to conduct their own discussions in July-August. In setting dates, we recommend that you avoid the dates on the Commissioners’ current schedule and invite the Commissioners’ attendance even though right now they are committed only to the above community visits.
Asking the Right Questions
In the Discussion Paper and Workbook, the Commissioners interpret their terms of reference as making “recommendations that will enable the government to:
- Place reasonable expectations on people receiving social assistance to participate in employment, treatment, or rehabilitation and to provide them with supports to do so;
- Establish an appropriate benefit structure that reduces barriers and helps people find employment;
- Simplify income and asset rules to improve equity and make it easier to understand and administer social assistance;
- Ensure the long‐term viability of the social assistance system; and
- Define Ontario’s position in relation to the federal and municipal governments in providing income security for Ontarians.” (Workbook, pp. 8-9)
The Review’s Workbook goes on to ask a series of questions under reach of the preceding areas. But, at the end of each section, the Commissioners also invite participants to identify “any issues we have missed or misunderstood.” This PFO Bulletin offers some guidance to communities on the Commissioners’ line of inquiry and important additional questions central to the Commissioners’ task.
Reasonable Expectations: A Labour Market with a Basic Minimum Wage Above Poverty
Under the heading “Reasonable Expectations and Necessary Supports for Employment”, the Workbook asks five questions (p. 11) related to:
- meeting the needs of employers and connecting social assistance recipients with employers;
- developing the skills of social assistance recipients to better meet employers’ needs
- making employment services more effective and accessible;
- reducing multiple barriers to employment for recipients; and
- connecting people with disabilities better to employment services.
People on social assistance and low income working people have consistently met their personal responsibilities with respect to taking employment:
- In 2004, 60% of parents and single adults living in poverty were employed but with insufficient earnings to live above poverty.
- One‐third of all Ontario children living in poverty in 2008 were in families with full‐time, full‐year hours of work (LICO-Before Tax).
- In terms of education, 80% of low income parents in Canada had completed high school, 50% had some post‐secondary education (2004) and 45% of the unemployed in Canada had completed post‐secondary education studies (2010).
Their main problem is a low wage job market where a single earner working full‐time, full‐year still falls $1,064 below the poverty line.
Poverty in Ontario is a structural issue. Even the Commissioners acknowledge that “questions around what work should pay” is another approach to income security (p. 4). Employment services for people on social assistance, however, will help only if the labour market provides decent work with adequate ages and benefits to enable people to escape and stay out of poverty.
The Commissioners state that the adequacy of wages in the labour market “is outside the mandate of our review” (p. 4). Yet, any reforms proposed to the social assistance system, even improved employment services and supports, will depend on a labour market that provides jobs that sustain individuals and families above poverty.
Poverty Free Ontario recommends that the Ontario Government build on its previous positive action of raising the minimum wage in 75 cent increments over three years to reach $10.25/hour in 2010 by a second set of three annual 75 cent increases starting in March 2012. This would bring the basic minimum wage to $12.15/hour in 2014 and, indexed annually thereafter, would ensure that an earner working full‐year, full‐time would have an income 10% above poverty.
Poverty Free Ontario encourages participants in the community consultations to give the Commissioners permission to address the larger structural labour market issue in their proposals for serious social assistance reform. Let the Commissioners report out on all that they heard, whether within or outside their interpretation of their mandate.
Questions to Commissioners Lankin and Sheikh:
- Will you report concerns expressed in the community that the success of social assistance reform and investment in employment services to recipients will depend on labour market policies that provide jobs with adequate wages to ensure earners live above the poverty line?
- Further, will you point out in your report that Government action to increase gradually the minimum wage since 2008 has started to bring low wage workers out of poverty and should be completed by three additional annual 75 cent increases starting in 2012 that would bring all Ontario earners working full‐year, full‐time above the poverty line by 2014?
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Benefit Levels that End “Deep Poverty”
Under the heading “Appropriate Benefit Structure”, the Review’s Workbook asks five questions (p. 16) about:
- setting social assistance rates;
- designing benefits that deal with the trade-off between ensuring adequate income support and ensuring that people are better off working;
- new benefits that could be provided to all low income individuals and families;
- improving social assistance by changing asset limits and exemptions; and
- designing and delivering benefits for people with disabilities
The Workbook suggests that there are trade‐offs to be made “between ensuring adequate income support” through social assistance and “ensuring that people are better off working” (p. 4). Unfortunately, this perpetuates the myth of the “welfare wall”, which holds that benefit levels approaching adequacy act as a disincentive to employment for recipients and is unfair to low wage working people.
There is no evidence that social assistance recipients who can work avoid employment in order to retain their benefits. As noted earlier, the main barrier to becoming “better off working” is the quality of jobs at the low end of the labour market, which both denies opportunity for social assistance recipients to et a firm foothold in sustaining employment and also keeps low wage working people in poverty.
Set Rates to End Deep Poverty. At current benefit levels, people receiving social assistance live in “deep poverty”, defined as having incomes below 80% of Ontario’s official poverty measure (Low Income Measure – After Tax, LIM-AT).
|
Poverty Line
(LIM-AT – 2008)*
|
Annual Income (2008)*
|
Basic Income Gap
|
| Single Adult on OW |
$18,582 |
$7,352 |
$11,230
(39.6% of LIM-AT)
|
| Lone parent with one child on OW |
$26,279 |
$16,683 |
$9,596
(63.5% of LIM-AT)
|
| Single Adult on ODSP |
$18,582 |
$12,647 |
$5,935
(68.1% of LIM-AT) |
* Using comparable data for 2008 as the latest year for which Statistics Canada has published LIM-AT figures.
In terms of setting social assistance rates, Poverty Free Ontario urges the Commissioners to propose a comprehensive plan to end deep poverty by 2015.
Further, Poverty Free Ontario believes that the Commissioners have a unique opportunity well before their final report date of June 2012 to address the serious hardship and hunger that almost 600,000 recipients are currently experiencing by calling for the immediate addition of a $100/month Healthy Food Supplement to the Basic Needs Allowance for all adults receiving OW or ODSP.
Questions to Commissioners Lankin and Sheikh:
- In your final report in June 2012, will you propose a comprehensive plan that would ensure no one receiving social assistance in Ontario is living in deep poverty by 2015
- Will you issue an interim report or statement following your community consultations and prior to the provincial election that:
- Expresses your intent to propose a comprehensive plan for social assistance reform to end deep poverty in Ontario by 2015?, and
- Call for the immediate addition of a $100/month Healthy Food Supplement to the Basic Needs Allowance for all adults receiving OW or ODSP?
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No Earnings Claw‐backs While Still in Poverty. In presentations and discussions in twenty communities between March and June 2011, Poverty Free Ontario consistently heard social assistance recipients express frustration at the low earnings exemption level before loss of benefits from employment earnings started and at the high rate (50%) of benefit loss for every dollar earned over the exemption limit. Participants enthusiastically supported the proposal that not one dollar of earnings should be clawed back through benefit reductions until an OW or ODSP recipient’s earnings reached the poverty line.
Benefits for People with Disabilities. Poverty Free Ontario supports the positions of the ODSP Action Coalition on benefit levels and employment expectations for people with disabilities.
Questions to Commissioners Lankin and Sheikh:
- Will you propose reforms recommending that no claw-backs or benefit reductions are applied against earned income for people on social assistance until they reach the LIM-AT applicable to their individual or family situation?
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Caution on Potential New Housing Benefit for All Low Income People. The Discussion Paper indicates that one possible way to avoid treating social assistance recipients and low income workers inequitably is “to make some benefits available to all low income people, whether or not they are receiving social assistance.” (p. 4) Examples given include the Ontario Child Benefit and the National Child Benefit Supplement for low income parents.
Although not explicitly identified in the Workbook, it is expected that the Commissioners will explore community interest in a housing benefit for all low income people as a way to address the income support issue.
Poverty Free Ontario offers several important cautions on the notion of a housing benefit:
- It is critical that a housing benefit for all low income people assure coverage for the portion of the high cost of housing that drains money away from the low income household’s budget for food and other necessities of life. It is generally accepted in Rent-Geared-to-Income provisions that households paying more than 30% of their gross incomes for housing require subsidy in order to meet all their costs for basic living necessities. Housing benefit proposals that Poverty Free Ontario has heard discussed suggest that the 30% threshold is being considered for families, but a 40% threshold is being considered for individuals, which again imposes an artificial divide between the “deserving” and “undeserving” poor. Further, housing benefit models under discussion do not necessarily provide full coverage for the amount over #0% or 40%, but only about three-quarters of the difference.
- The introduction of a housing benefit must contribute significantly to moving people living on social assistance toward income adequacy for their overall necessities of life. Ontarians receiving social assistance are very familiar with claw‐backs on benefit programs applying to all persons on low income. Presumably, the Commissioners would recommend against a claw‐back for a housing benefit that is supposed to apply to both social assistance recipients and low income working people. Currently, however, a portion of the Basic Needs Allowance to social assistance recipients is designated for shelter costs. Unless, social assistance rates are also increased in the direction of adequacy for basic living needs, there is the risk that rates are also increased in the direction of adequacy for basic living needs, there is the risk that administration of a partial housing benefit will be offset with a loss or reduction in the shelter allowance portion of the OW and ODSP recipient’s overall benefit, leaving them only marginally better off.
Poverty Free Ontario recognizes that a housing benefit for social assistance recipients and low wage workers may well have a place in the overall income security reforms that the Commissioners will propose by June 2012. Under conditions where overall benefit levels bring social assistance recipients out of deep poverty and where minimum wage levels assure low income workers earn above the poverty line, a housing benefit can be an important complementary protection against variable high housing costs in communities across the province.
A full housing benefit is a complement to the core income of a low income individual or family, not a substitute for the basic income required to meet daily living requirements. It should be designed as a protection for household money for food and other necessities of life.
Questions to Commissioners Lankin and Sheikh:
- Should you propose a new housing benefit,:
- will it be available to all low income individuals and families with housing costs above 30% of gross household income?
- will it provide full or partial coverage of the difference between 30% of their housing costs and the actual costs of those in need?
- will it reduce the shelter allowance portion of OW and ODSP recipients’ benefits?
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Special-Purpose Benefits
The Commissioners will also seek input on eligibility for special-purpose benefits and inquire whether some may best be delivered outside the social assistance system. The Special Diet Allowance is one such benefit identified.
The Ontario Government’s 2010 budget proposed changes to the Special Diet Allowance (SDA) that threatened an important supplementary support to individuals and families with health-related dietary needs not adequately covered through existing benefits. Since an internal review of the SDA was completed, the eligibility process has been tightened up and the number of qualifying medically necessary conditions has been reduced significantly.
The Commissioners have a chance to serve the interests of OW and ODSP recipients in two ways through their Review:
- Distinguish the issue adequacy in benefit levels in general that enable access to affordable and nutritious food for all recipients from support for recipients with special dietary requirements; and
- Reinforce the importance of a supplementary Special Diet Allowance available fairly to recipients with medically necessary dietary requirements.
Clearly, the administration of a Special Diet Allowance in a way that would open its eligibility to low income working individuals and families would be beneficial in general to personal and community health.
Questions to Commissioners Lankin and Sheikh:
- Will you recommend that the Ontario Government retain and expand as required a Special Diet Allowance to ensure that OW and ODSP recipients and qualifying low income workers and working families will have access to food essential to medically prescribed special dietary requirements?
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Federal and Provincial Jurisdictions in Income Security
The Commissioners also express the need for better integration of the federal and provincial provisions for income security in general. They point to the growing burden on social assistance as lower numbers of Ontario’s unemployed receive Employment Insurance. These are legitimate concerns and improved coordination and integration between the federal and provincial governments on income security issues are highly desirable.
Federal-provincial jurisdictional considerations and discussions for long-term income security reform should not, however, delay provincial action in the short and intermediate terms on the two clear areas of sole provincial responsibility:
- Basic incomes through social assistance which ensure a life out of poverty for parents and adults with limited access to employment; and
- Labour markets with decent work that enable full-time, full-year earners to live above poverty.
Poverty Free Ontario urges community participants to reinforce with the Commissioners the imperative that the Province of Ontario fulfills its obligations to both social assistance recipients and low income working people, regardless of the federal government’s position on income security.
Questions to Commissioners Lankin and Sheikh:
- Will you recommend action by the Ontario Government on social assistance reform and labour market policy regardless of any proposals or discussions with the federal government in the longer-term with respect to more integrated income security policy?
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Conclusion
Poverty Free Ontario urges communities to affirm the opportunity that the Social Assistance Review Commissioners have not only to propose serious and comprehensive reforms to the social assistance system in Ontario, but also to make sure that the issue of poverty and poverty eradication is part of the policy debate in the upcoming provincial election. Currently, no political party is giving the issue of poverty any prominence at all in its party platform.
The Commissioners would best serve this issue with an interim report on their deliberations with the community by August or early September prior to the provincial election date of October 6.
2009 Figures Show Growth Rate of Poverty in Ontario the Highest of All Regions in Canada since 2007 Election
As the public debate starts to warm up in Ontario for the October election, Statistics Canada’s release of the 2009 poverty rates yesterday point to the importance of firmly placing poverty on the provincial political agenda. Using the official poverty indicator adopted by Ontario as part of its poverty reduction strategy in 2008 (Low Income Measure After Tax – LIM-AT), Ontario’s poverty rate increased to 13.1% in 2009, a growth rate of 17% since the 2007 provincial election year (See Table following).
While Ontario’s poverty rate is slightly below the LIM-AT for Canada at 13.1%, the rate of Ontario’s poverty growth has increased the highest of all other regions of Canada and reached a total of 1,689,00 Ontarians in 2009, which is 277,000 more people living in poverty than in 2007.
While the rate of poverty growth by age group is lowest among children at 3.5%, Poverty Free Ontario notes that the proportion of working age adults (18 to 64 years old) living in poverty increased from 11.2% to 13.4%, a growth rate of 19.6%. Ontarians 65 years and older also show an extremely high poverty growth rate of 41.9% since 2007, although the overall proportion of seniors in poverty still remains below 9%.
The figures illustrate that the poverty levels in Ontario among unattached males (24.1%) and unattached females (25.0%) remain exceptionally high. The poverty growth rate among unattached men under 65 years old was 6.9%, off-setting the almost equivalent 7.2% rate of poverty decrease for unattached women under 65 over the two-year period.
Among the population living alone, however, unattached elderly women have fallen into poverty at the highest rate since 2007 (20.1%).
This first review of Statistics Canada’s poverty figures for 2009 indicates that, although measures to end child and family poverty need to be maintained and strengthened, the rate of poverty among working age adults, seniors and adults living alone is entrenched and growing rapidly. A comprehensive strategy to end poverty among all parts of the population is sorely needed to stem and reverse this direction.
It is critical that poverty eradication become a major issue in the Ontario provincial election.
PDF Version of PFO Bulletin #2
KITCHENER — Local social activist Brice Balmer wants the province to do more for single poor adults.
Entrepreneur Tim Jackson wants the local business community to invest more in social causes.
Those are two of many ideas that were raised when about 20 community leaders met in Kitchener Monday with Laurel Broten, who as Ontario’s minister of children and youth services oversees the province’s poverty reduction strategy.
The province is midway through its five-year goal to reduce child poverty by 25 per cent.
“We are proud of the progress we have made,” said Broten, who is travelling across the province to give a status report on the provincial initiatives and to hear about best practices in reducing child poverty.
“We have acknowledged there is more to be done,” she said.
One of the key components of the “kids first” provincial strategy, she said, is full-day junior and senior kindergarten classes to break the cycle of poverty.
Others include increasing the Ontario Child Benefit, introducing tax reforms so more poor people get off the tax rolls and retraining unemployed people, initiatives that assist adults as well as children, Broten said.
But Balmer told the minister that he is concerned about adults who lost their unskilled, high-paid manufacturing jobs during the recent recession and, who remain unemployed. People want jobs, he said.
He’s also concerned about the cost of poverty locally. He said one local resident used the emergency department 115 times one year which is more expensive than providing him with supportive housing.
“It is the adults we need to worry about,” he said.
Broten said she was especially interested in Jackson’s Social Venture Partners’ concept.
Founded in November 2010, Social Ventures Partners Waterloo Region consists of dozens of local investors, who have not only committed $5,000 each, but are also their time and expertise in making a tangible difference for a charitable venture.
This year’s recipient is Strong Start, a local literacy program for children.
Broten asked Jackson if there is a role for the government in terms of tax incentives to support philanthropic endeavours such as his.
“Absolutely,” he said.
Jackson also discussed the mismatch between an unmet need locally for highly skilled workers for the high-tech industry and a growing pool of unskilled, unemployed workers.
Linda Terry, executive director of the Social Planning Council of Cambridge and North Dumfries, said there are a growing number of seniors going to food banks and shelters. Last year, she said 88 seniors stayed at the local shelter.
“People are showing up at our food banks and shelters who never expected to be there,” she said.
fbarrick@therecord.com
http://www.therecord.com/news/local/article/547261–social-activists-look-for-improvements-for-the-poor
Social Assistance Review Commissioners Release Discussion Paper and Workbook
On Thursday, June 9, Social Assistance Review Commissioners Frances Lankin and Dr. Munir Sheikh released the Discussion Paper and Workbook for their summer consultation on the Social Assistance Review and notice of the web site on which further information and updates will be posted www.socialassistancereview.ca.
The Commissioners will be making visits to eleven selected communities across Ontario for conversations and consultations on the Review and are encouraging community and individual input to the process until September 1, 2011. The release includes a guide to convening and conducting community conversations for the purposes of collecting ideas and suggestions for improving the social assistance system and overall income security reform and sending same to the Commissioners.
The Commissioners plan to issue an Options Paper in November for further input and consultation before formulating their recommendations over the winter and releasing their final report in June 2012.
Poverty Free Ontario on the Social Assistance Review Commission
Poverty Free Ontario will monitor the progress of the Commissioners’ Review. This Bulletin is a preliminary assessment. Poverty Free Ontario will have more to say on the social assumptions and policy directions that are guiding the Review and their prospective impacts on poverty eradication through subsequent Bulletins and its web site (www.povertyfreeontario.ca).
Since March, the Social Planning Network of Ontario has taken the Poverty Free Ontario initiative to eighteen communities across the province and has received an enthusiastic response to its analysis of the issues in social assistance reform and its proposals for ending deep poverty in Ontario by upgrading the social assistance system
Poverty Free Ontario promotes a two-track approach to social assistance reform calling for a first track of immediate implementation of the $100/month Healthy Food Supplement as the important initial step toward establishing adequate benefit levels for all adults on OW and ODSP. While this action is taken now, the second track of the longer-term review and reform process for upgrading social assistance should get underway.
Poverty Free Ontario calls on Commissioners Lankin and Sheikh to issue an interim report prior to the provincial election:
- expressing their intent to propose a comprehensive plan for ending deep poverty in Ontario by 2015 so that no individual or family on OW or ODSP must live on incomes below 80% of LIM-AT (i.e. in “deep poverty” using Ontario’s official poverty line); and
- recommending that the Ontario Government of whatever political make-up introduce the $100/month Healthy Food Supplement without waiting for the release of the Commissioners’ final report.
An interim report by the Commissioners in early September would help the community to make poverty eradication an issue during the provincial election campaign.
Applying the Poverty Free Ontario Lens to the Review’s Discussion Paper and Consultation
The Commissioners’ Discussion Paper and related materials are encouraging and helpful to serious social assistance reform in the following ways:
- The Commissioners interpret their mandate as giving them “freedom to examine not only all aspects of social assistance, but to consider all other aspects of the overall income security system that may impinge upon social assistance outcomes.” (p. 2). This could be consistent with Poverty Free Ontario’s proposed two-track approach. One important aspect of the current social assistance system requiring immediate action is the intolerable inadequacy of benefit levels to recipients.
- The Commissioners express a commitment “to provide adequate income security to those who cannot work” (p. 2).
- The Commissioners acknowledge that a main barrier to social assistance recipients successfully moving into employment is the lack of other essential supports such as stable housing, childcare, and the costs of medical supports such as prescription drugs.
- The Commissioners address the issue of supporting employment opportunities for persons with disabilities, indicating some sensitivity to the important balance between opportunity for meaningful work and the security of adequate income support regardless of employment status.
- The Commissioners suggest that “opportunity planning” or “intensive case management” models would be more supportive to better outcomes for people on social assistance. This would indicate the prospect of workers in the system being freed of the burden of applying heavy and punitive monitoring practices, which would be beneficial both to the experience of social assistance recipients with the system and to the job satisfaction of workers in the system.
- The Commissioners show a determination to address the complexity and inconsistent application of the regulations and rules that create additional hardship, stress and frustration for people on social assistance.
There are a number of areas covered in the Commissioners’ Discussion Paper, however, that should be approached with more caution as communities start to prepare their input to the consultation process.
- Extending the Notion of “Reasonable Expectations”. The Commissioners are strongly suggesting an employment-focused reform of the social assistance system, which establishes “reasonable expectations” on the recipient with respect to participation in the labour market. Poverty Free Ontario contends that there should also be a “reasonable expectation” for the provincial government to provide social assistance benefits at a level that allows recipients to meet the basic costs of the necessities of life and to live with some measure of health and dignity.
With respect to expectations about employment at the low end of the labour market, Poverty Free Ontario suggests further that the Commissioners should also point to the “reasonable expectations” of:
- The provincial government to ensure that the basic minimum wage enables an earner working full-year, full-time to live above the poverty line; and
- Employers to recognize that in addition to meeting the economic test of a fair return on capital for conducting a successful business, that they also have a responsibility to meet the “social test” of paying a basic minimum wage that assures an employee working full-year, full-time lives above poverty.
- Perpetuating the Myth of the “Welfare Wall”. Unfortunately, the Discussion Paper promotes the notion of the “welfare wall”, expressing the need to “deliver a benefit structure that provides an adequate level of support, without creating barriers to work – barriers that discourage people from seeking work because it may not pay enough in income and benefits.” (p. 4)
Poverty Free Ontario has challenged the legitimacy of the “welfare wall” contentions as not being founded on any empirical evidence. The Discussion Paper carefully presents the issue as “ensuring people are better off working” and states that this challenge suggests the need for “difficult trade-offs” between the interests of social assistance recipients and low wage workers – a perpetuation of the pitting of the working poor (deserving poor) against the welfare recipient (undeserving poor).
The Discussion Paper then presents three approaches to this dilemma:
- Allowing the recipient to keep a portion of his/her benefits and related services and top up their income with employment earnings until the person leaves the system, judged in the Paper as unfair to low wage working people.
- Setting benefit levels below the low wage job rates so that recipients will see that they are “better off working”, which conflicts with the notion of income adequacy.
- Providing some benefits to all low income people whether on social assistance or working such as the Ontario Child Benefit (e.g. a housing benefit).
A fourth option presented by the Commissioners as “outside the mandate of our review but within the broader context of income security – looks at questions around what work should pay, and raises issues related to ‘living wages’ and access to prescription drug and other benefits from employers.” (p.4)
As stated earlier with respect to a basic minimum wage, Poverty Free Ontario agrees that the issue of what work should pay is critical to ending working poverty, and is unclear why the Commissioners put this limit on their income security review mandate, which they otherwise interpret fairly broadly.
With respect to the first three approaches in the Discussion Paper, Poverty Free Ontario contends that the existing social assistance system can be used now to improve adequacy significantly starting with the introduction of the $100/month Healthy Food Supplement. Given the intolerably low current benefit levels, allowing recipients who do find work to keep their employment earnings until their earnings reach the poverty line for their family situation is the only path of decency and dignity. There need be no conflict with the interests of low income workers if a similar path toward gradually increasing the basic minimum wage to enable the full-time, full-year worker to make earnings above the poverty line (Poverty Free Ontario recommends 10% above the LIM-AT based on a $12.50 hourly rate in 2014 achieved in three annual 75 cent increments starting in 2012).
- The Inadequacy and Risks of a Housing Benefit Approach. Poverty Free Ontario remains concerned that the framing of the three possible approaches to the benefit structure in the Discussion Paper favours a housing benefit over any significant increases in the direction of adequacy for social assistance rates. Poverty Free Ontario would support a full housing benefit that is available to all low income households paying more than 30% of their gross income on housing costs. Current proposals under consideration do not satisfy that requirement as far as Poverty Free Ontario can determine.
Plus, the development and implementation of a housing benefit with satisfactory coverage of the low income population in need will take some time, while social assistance recipients continue to live in deep poverty for lack of any rate increases since 1995. The Discussion Paper continues the Ontario Government’s misrepresentation of the cost of living adjustments to benefits since 2004 as “rate increases”, when in fact they were increases for inflation and not increases in the actual real income to recipients (p. 11). The 1% cost of living adjustments in social assistance in the last two budgets have not equalled the actual 2% rate of inflation in 2010-11.
Another major caution about a housing benefit as an alternative to setting adequate benefit rates is the same kind of “restructuring” that occurred when the OCB was introduced in 2008 while the rate for parents on social assistance was cut as well as their winter clothing and back-to-school allowances. Social assistance recipients will likely be subject to loss of the shelter allowance portion of their basic benefit if the housing benefit is introduced for all low income people through similar rate “restructuring”. Will this be one of the “difficult trade-offs”?
PDF version of PFO Bulletin #1
‘We’re just not cutting it for people living in poverty’
YORK REGION – Poverty is finally coming out of the closet, York Region Food Network program co-ordinator Yvonne Kelly told social service activists and advocates attending the Human Dignity For All: Working For a Poverty-Free Ontario symposium yesterday.
Creating awareness, igniting political will and advancing a policy agenda will support the goal of reducing and eventually eliminating destitution in our communities by 2020, she said.
The gathering at the Aurora Public Library, presented by the Social Planning Network of Ontario and sponsored by its regional council, the Food Network and other stakeholders, is a prime example of how discussion leads to action, Ms Kelly said.
“We want to bring everyone to an understanding of what a poverty-free Ontario could look like,” she said.
“It’s about galvanizing and bringing people together. There’s more impact and momentum by working collaboratively.”
Planning network co-ordinator Peter Clutterbuck lauded York Region’s anti-poverty efforts, citing the region as having one of the strongest social planning councils.
His colleague and keynote speaker Marvyn Novick, a social science professor at Ryerson University, agreed, suggesting the region’s work on poverty reduction is encouraging.
Still, social strata inequities, locally and globally, remain.
Poverty levels in Ontario haven’t changed in 30 years, he said. Social assistance incomes remain unacceptably low.
The poverty line for one adult is $18,582. A single adult on Ontario Works receives $7,352 per year, a gap of more than $11,000. A single parent with one child hits the poverty line at $26,279, but receives $16,683 in Ontario Works support — a deficit of just under $10,000.
Living in deep poverty means tens of thousands of Ontario adults and children experience chronic cycles of hunger and hardship each month when money runs out for basic necessities, he said.
Having a job doesn’t necessarily help, he said. Low pay keeps many trapped in poverty. One third of all Ontario children living in poverty in 2008 came from families where parents worked full time.
The eradication of poverty is premised on policies focusing on three key areas, Mr. Novick said.
To end deep poverty, social assistance needs to be upgraded. To stem working poverty, basic living wages must be enhanced. To ensure food security a full housing benefit must be phased in.
He advocates for an immediate $100 per month healthy food supplement for all adults on social assistance.
Poverty is political, he said. Industrialized countries with high levels of wealth also have the highest levels of poverty and disparities. The Ontario government’s commitment to reducing child poverty ends in 2013, he said. Accordingly, it’s imperative to have poverty front and centre on the provincial election agenda this October.
Ms Kelly agreed.
“We can’t afford not to address poverty,” she said.
York Region Social Planning Council co-chairperson Pat Taylor said efforts to ease the plight of the marginalized need to speed up.
“We’re just not cutting it for people living in poverty,” she said. “This event underlines the urgency of this message. By increasing peoples’ understanding, we hope to create action and strategies that will work.”
In timely tandem with the symposium was the Food Network’s release of Hunger in the Midst of Prosperity: The Need for Food Banks in York Region: 2011.
Last year, regional food banks provided sustenance for more than 52,000 clients, a 20-per-cent spike from 2008, the report notes. More than four in 10 adults said they go hungry at least once a week. Among children surveyed, 17 per cent go hungry once per week.
Food network executive director Joan Stonehocker expressed frustration about the continued need for food banks.
“The pace of change around poverty reduction seems painfully slow,” she said. “As Canadians, we should no longer be speaking with pride about our social safety net. Too many people in our communities are forced to use food banks to get enough to eat.”
The report identifies the struggles of living on low income. With a high proportion of income going to housing, people juggle funds to try to stay afloat and food becomes a discretionary expense, she said.
http://www.yorkregion.com/news/article/1023759–poverty-activists-frustrated-by-pace-of-change
The Social Planning Network of Ontario (SPNO) plans to launch an initiative to build cross-community support for a Poverty Free Ontario by the end of this decade.
Social planning councils have a long history since the 1930s of advocating for low income people, whether welfare recipients or working poor. In recent years, the SPNO and its organizational members have assumed a lead role in urging the Ontario Government to adopt a poverty reduction strategy for Ontario. Specifically,
- In the summer-fall of 2007, SPNO mobilized cross-community support for poverty reduction in Ontario and released a report on “Ontario as the Child Poverty Centre of Canada”, which prompted Premier McGuinty prior to the October 2007 election to commit to the development of a poverty reduction strategy within one year of his Government’s re-election.
- SPNO strengthened its cross-community mobilization on poverty reduction by developing a Policy Framework and Blueprint for Poverty Reduction and by conducting two tours of the province visiting 30 communities prior to the release of the Ontario Poverty Reduction Strategy in December 2008.
- Since 2009, working with community leadership in Toronto and across the province, SPNO has focused on the Put Food in the Budget Campaign (PFIB), promoting the adoption of a benefit increase of $100 a month Healthy Food Supplement for all adults on OW and ODSP as the first step towards adequacy in benefit levels to enable all Ontarians to live with health and dignity.
- Partnering with The Stop Community Food Centre and guided by the PFIB Steering Committee, the SPNO has provided organizing and field support for the use of the on-line Do the Math survey tool (9,000 completed) and has engaged 20 communities across the province in the Do the Math Challenge.
2011 Provincial Election Year
The Ontario Government’s current commitment to poverty reduction focusing on a 25% reduction in child poverty ends in 2013. Since 2011 is a provincial election year, now is the time to begin a public discussion about where Government action needs to go to move from a partial and measured commitment to reducing child poverty to a full commitment to the eradication of all poverty in Ontario by the year 2020.
In May 2010, the SPNO leadership set policy development and cross-community mobilization for a poverty-free Ontario as a major provincial and community level priority for SPNO and its local and regional organizational members in 2011.
Mission
An Ontario free of poverty will be reflected in healthy, inclusive communities with a place of dignity for everyone and the essential conditions of well-being for all.
The mission of Poverty Free Ontario is to eliminate divided communities in which large numbers of adults and children live in chronic states of material hardship, poor health and social exclusion.
Securing a Legacy Commitment
2017 will be the 150th anniversary of Canada as a country and Ontario as a province. Poverty Free Ontario will ask the political leadership of all parties in the 2011 provincial election to commit publicly to a “legacy commitment” for the Sesquicentennial. That legacy commitment would be for the provincial government of whatever political stripe to have adopted and implemented a comprehensive plan by 2017 resulting in the eradication of poverty in Ontario by 2020. This plan should move beyond poverty reduction targets set by the current Government for children in 2013 to bring all children and adults out of poverty by the year 2020.
PFO Strategy for 2011
A. A Policy Agenda for a Poverty Free Ontario
A new Policy Agenda for a Poverty Free Ontario would build on SPNO’s policy development work in 2008. Essentially, policy proposals will be developed and advanced in three key areas for the eradication of poverty in Ontario:
- End Deep Poverty: Upgrade Social Assistance
- End Working Poverty: Assure Basic Minimum Wages
- Protect Food Money: Phase in a Full Housing Benefit
The Policy Agenda would link the strategy for eradication of poverty with a good quality of life for all Ontarians in order to build public and political support. It must demonstrate that the interests of the poor and the broad middle class are indivisible.
B. Critical Milestones
Simultaneously with the framing and promotion of a Policy Agenda for a Poverty Free Ontario, there are specific actions and resource allocations that can and must be taken now and over the next year or more to kick-start a longer term commitment to eradicating poverty. These actions constitute Critical Milestones that would:
- address immediate hardships that people are experiencing now (i.e. the HFS);
- identify key decision dates for the implementation of poverty eradication measures to achieve the goal by 2020; and
- demonstrate serious political commitment to poverty elimination beyond the perpetual future promises that have prevailed to date.
The Put Food in the Budget Campaign advocating for a $100/month Healthy Food Supplement for all adults on social assistance is an immediately doable action. This measure could be implemented as part of the Government’s commitment to Social Assistance Review, which at the moment is focusing on long-term overhaul of the income security system rather than action possible immediately using the existing social assistance system.
Proposing specific measures for ensuring income adequacy beyond the first step of the HFS, Poverty Free Ontario would constitute an important policy development link to the immediate social assistance increase that the PFIB campaign is advocating.
You can now see videos from various Poverty Free Ontario events on the PFO YouTube channel. Just head over to http://www.youtube.com/user/PovertyFreeOntario.
Here is a video from the Poverty Free Ontario May 5th event.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dbhoZyZl-Hs
