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Provincial adviser proposes basic income of least $1,320
Hugh Segal, Ontario’s special adviser on basic income, wants province to test the merits of boosting incomes for the working poor and replacing social assistance with no-strings attached payments.
It has been hailed as the magic bullet to end poverty and denounced as a Trojan Horse to dismantle the social safety net.
But there has been little serious research to prove either position. Until now.
Ontario is poised to become ground zero for what may be the largest pilot project yet to test the notion of a basic income in North America.
In a discussion paper released Thursday, Ontario’s special adviser on basic income suggests topping up incomes of the working poor and replacing the province’s meagre and rule-bound social assistance program with a monthly payment of at least $1,320 for a single person, or about 75 per cent of the poverty line.
Participants with disabilities would get an additional $500 a month, according to the proposal by Hugh Segal, a former Conservative senator and a longtime advocate of basic income, also known as guaranteed annual income or minimum income.
The no-strings-attached payments for adults between the ages of 18 and 65 would be non-taxable and participants would be allowed to keep a portion of any additional income earned through employment.
“The pathologies of poverty are not limited only to those on social assistance,” Segal said in an interview. “The pathologies of poverty, illness, early hospitalization, bad educational outcomes and early drop-outs exist for everybody beneath the poverty line.”
Ontarians are being invited to give their views on Segal’s proposal online and in one of 15 public consultations between now and the end of January. The government will release a final report on the consultations and introduce a plan for the pilot by April, 2017. Funding for the pilot will be based on how the program is designed, according to government officials.
A single person on Ontario Works currently lives on about 45 per cent of the LIM, or about $700 a month, while a person relying on the Ontario Disability Support Program receives about $1,130.
Although Segal does not say where in Ontario the proposed three-year experiment should take place, or how many people should participate, he says the pilot should include a “randomized control trial” in a large urban centre as well as three “saturation sites” where everyone living in poverty would be included. He suggests a city or town in both northern and southern Ontario along with a First Nations community should be tested.
Participation would be voluntary and no one would be financially worse off as a result of the pilot, Segal says in his report titled, “Finding a Better Way: A Basic Income Pilot Project for Ontario.”
The trial would measure health and education outcomes, food security, life choices, such as the decision to have children, living arrangements and parenting time, employment status, hours worked and income earned and participants’ perceptions of citizenship and inclusion.
It would also examine how a basic income impacts employment insurance, provincial and federal child benefits and other social programs.
“Testing a basic income is a humane and useful way to measure how so many of the costs of poverty (in terms of productivity, health, policing, and other community costs, to name only a few) might be diminished, while poverty itself is reduced and work is encouraged,” Segal says in the report.
Ontario spends about $9 billion a year on social assistance, excluding costs to the health care, education and legal systems produced by the effects of poverty, Segal notes.
The pilot should help Ontario determine if a basic income can build on other government initiatives, such as increases in the minimum wage, improvements to the Ontario Student Assistance Plan (OSAP) and the Ontario child benefit to cut the depth and incidence of poverty in the province, he adds.
The Wynne government signaled its intention to launch a basic income pilot in this year’s spring budget. Community and Social Services Minister Helena Jaczek appointed Segal in June to prepare a design and implementation plan.
Other countries such as Finland, the Netherlands and Kenya are developing their own pilot projects to test the idea. And a California technology company is planning a five-year project. But in a referendum last summer, Switzerland rejected a universal basic income of about $3,300 a month out of fears it would bankrupt the country and encourage idleness.
Canada explored the concept in the late 1970s when Dauphin, Manitoba tested a “mincome” for low-income residents, set at 60 per cent of the poverty line. Results showed a drop in hospital admissions and mental health problems, an increase in high school completion among young men and little impact on residents’ attachment to work.
Segal says the idea is gaining worldwide attention because globalization and technological advances are leaving large sectors of the population behind.
Although many anti-poverty activists support investigating the idea of a basic income, some view the proposed pilot project and government consultations as more delay in their quest to raise welfare rates which currently lock almost 895,000 Ontarians in deep poverty.
“This government’s track record of studying poverty, reviewing poverty, consulting on poverty and making empty promises to reduce it suggests nothing will be different this time,” said Mike Balkwill of Put Food in the Budget.
“Lack of specificity about how long the basic income pilot will run conveniently provides an additional excuse for the Liberal government to hold off on significant increases to social assistance rates in the 2017 budget, or even before the next provincial election,” he added.
However, Jennefer Laidley of the Income Security Advocacy Centre, a legal aid centre that advocates for those on social assistance said Segal’s report “opens up a critical conversation about how we ensure everyone in Ontario has enough to support themselves and their families and how government programs should treat people with dignity.
“There’s no magic bullet,” she said. “So it’s key that government is now exploring various solutions — reforming existing social assistance programs, improving the quality of work, and considering basic income.”
https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2016/11/03/proposed-basic-income-pilot-would-provide-monthly-payments-of-least-1320.html
Ontario Seeking Input on Basic Income Pilot
Province Launching Consultations on Innovative Way to Deliver Supports
Ontario is seeking public input to help inform the design of a basic income pilot, which is an innovative new approach to providing income security.
The pilot would test whether a basic income is a more effective way of lifting people out of poverty and improving health, housing and employment outcomes. Through the consultations, Ontario is seeking input from across the province, including from people with lived experience, municipalities, experts and academics. The province will also work with Indigenous partners to tailor a culturally appropriate engagement process that reflects the advice and unique perspective of First Nations, urban Indigenous, Métis and Inuit communities.
The province is consulting on key questions, including: who should be eligible, where the pilot should take place, what the basic income level should be and how best to evaluate it. The consultations will be guided, in part, by a discussion paper by the Hon. Hugh Segal, Finding a Better Way: A Basic Income Pilot Project for Ontario, and will run from November 2016 to January 2017. People can participate by:
- Attending a regional in-person discussion hosted by the province.
- Commenting online at ontario.ca/basicincome.
Exploring innovative ways to deliver supports and services is part of our government’s plan to create jobs, grow our economy and help people in their everyday lives.
Quick Facts
- Finland, the Netherlands and Kenya are also looking at developing pilot projects that test the idea of a basic or guaranteed annual income.
- Y-Combinator, a California technology company has announced it will be piloting a Basic Income project that is expected to run for five years.
- The government will prepare a final report on what we heard during the consultations, and introduce a plan for the pilot by April, 2017.
- Organizations interested in hosting their own basic income pilot consultations can go to ontario.ca/basicincome for the consultation guide.
Additional Resources
Letter to Susan Marjetti, Senior Managing Director, Ontario Region, CBC Radio
This posting is courtesy of Put Food In The Budget
We are dismayed by the misleading promotion from the CBC Toronto that the donations to food banks from this coming Friday’s Sounds of the Season program will ‘feed the city’. If you share our concern you can click here to send a letter to Susan Marjetti, Senior Managing Director, Ontario Region, CBC Radio.
The research in our Discussion Paper – We Need to Talk. Who banks on food banks? shows that the $600,000 raised by the CBC Sounds of the Season program in 2013 provided on average a one-time contribution of 2.76 pounds of food to those visiting Daily Bread member food agencies.
It is inaccurate for the Sounds of the Season program to suggest that these food donations will meet the needs of people who are poor – or that these donations will ‘feed the city’.
Charity is a worthy and individual act of compassion. It is completely inadequate however to address the systemic factors that cause poverty.
- We believe that focusing on public donations of food and money to food banks in one big seasonal event gives the false impression that little more needs to be done.
- We are concerned that Sounds of the Season creates the false the impression that poor people will receive enough food from food banks.
- We are concerned that focusing on charitable giving during the holiday season provides ‘feel good’ relief that allows people to enjoy their holidays without feeling additional responsibility for the impoverishment experienced by a large part of the population.
- We believe that defining ‘hunger’ as the problem, and charity as the solution, creates low expectations of how CBC listeners can act to end poverty. A charitable donation to food banks to prevent people from starving is not an adequate response to poverty. We fear that more effective public action – acting in solidarity with people who are poor – is discouraged by an event that directly and indirectly communicates that ‘charity is enough’.
We believe the voices of people who use food banks, and the voices of people who volunteer at food banks and emergency meal programs, have not been adequately represented in past broadcasts.
If you share our view than we ask that you send this letter to Susan Marjetti, Managing Director of CBC Ontario Region now. (click here)
Background: We wrote to CBC Radio Toronto on September 16 to request that the Sounds of the Season program this year increase its emphasis on the following messages:
- Poverty is the problem, not hunger.
- Addressing the systemic roots of poverty is the only way to ensure that people who are poor will have enough food.
- Food banks and emergency meal programs do not, and never will, meet the basic needs of people in our communities with low incomes.
On October 6, Susan Marjetti responded to our concerns saying (in summary) “We are confident that our continued association with food banks for CBC fundraisers across Ontario allows us the greatest potential to make a difference in both the immediate need to put food on the table for the 375,000 Ontarians who rely on food banks each month and address the issue of poverty in our community”.
On October 15 we wrote back to say “We continue to be concerned that the Sounds of the Season program primarily emphasizes ending hunger, and fails to raise awareness about the policies, legislation and collective public advocacy that is required to end poverty.
We simply want the Sounds of the Season program to encourage a more balanced discussion of the limits of charity as a strategy to end systemic poverty in Ontario.
Steering Committee
Put Food in the Budget campaign.
{1} ONTARIO ASSOCIATION OF FOOD BANK 2013 HUNGER REPORT
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PFO Bulletin #13 – Creating Communities of Shared Opportunity across Ontario
Time for a Civic Declaration on Decent Work and Basic Incomes for All
The Social Planning Network of Ontario (SPNO) was active and instrumental in making child poverty a major issue in the 2007 election and, in partnership with the Interfaith Social Assistance Reform Coalition (ISARC), SPNO mobilized the Poverty Free Ontario (PFO) network to keep poverty eradication alive in communities across Ontario during the 2011 election. Many of PFO’s cross-community partners revived the “Let’s Vote for a Poverty Free Ontario” election sign campaign in the just concluded 2014 provincial election, which produced a majority Liberal government.
Where does SPNO/PFO go from here with the poverty eradication agenda under the new political scene?
Retrospective on Impact of SPNO’s Poverty Eradication Strategy
Seven years ago in its spring meeting on Toronto Island, SPNO set an advocacy agenda for active promotion among its member organizations’ communities across Ontario in the provincial election scheduled for October 2007. The record of the Toronto Island discussion clearly states the intent to demand that timelines and targets be established, first for the reduction of child and family poverty within five years and then a plan for its elimination in Canada’s sesquicentennial year 2017. Several major strategies in a poverty reduction and elimination plan were proposed:
- “sustaining employment”, so that no families in which a member worked full-year, full-time remained living in poverty; and
- a full child benefit ($5400 per child in poorest families) to supplement employment income in recognition of the public interest in supporting the costs of raising children.
In addition, the SPNO members reaffirmed the importance of strengthening the community support base (e.g. early learning, affordable housing, community support services) as an important component of a poverty reduction strategy.
SPNO recognized decent work and putting an end to working poverty as the cornerstone of its child and family poverty reduction agenda. The record of SPNO’s discussion in 2007 clearly addressed the false contentions of the “welfare wall” proponents. SPNO rejected the notion that people had to be kept in destitution as an incentive to leave social assistance to accept low wage work.
While the $100/month Healthy Food Supplement proposal and the Put Food in the Budget (PFIB) campaign would not be shaped for two years, the SPNO meeting in the spring of 2007 laid the groundwork for new benchmarks to end both working poverty and deep poverty, calling for a “just differential” between social assistance rates and the minimum wage. Notes of the SPNO meeting indicate that the goal by 2017 should be to get working people 20% above the poverty line and people on social assistance up to the poverty line, first by making sure no social assistance recipient lived in deep poverty (below 80% of the poverty line).
These commitments among the SPNO membership on Toronto Island in 2007 became the central messages for a cross-community awareness campaign over the summer and fall months running up to the election. Along with SPNO’s report naming Ontario the “child poverty centre of Canada”, the community meetings and media coverage contributed to Premier McGuinty’s promise to develop a child and family poverty reduction strategy within the first year of his new administration, if re-elected.
Since 2007, SPNO’s positions on sustaining employment supplemented with essential income supports to reduce and eliminate poverty have been incorporated into major campaigns focusing on raising the minimum wage (WAC’s Minimum Wage Campaign)[1] and moving social assistance rates towards adequacy (Put Food in the Budget)[2]. The Liberal Government has shown movement towards the demands of the Minimum Wage Campaign. And, persistent cross-community advocacy since 2009 has resulted in resolutions expressing support for the $100/month HFS in 25 Ontario municipalities and recommendation by the Social Assistance Review Commissioners, leading to the first real income increase in social assistance rates in the 2013 provincial budget in twenty years.[3]
Decent Work and Basic Income Strategies through the Life Cycle
In recent years, the debate about a Guaranteed Annual Income or Basic Income has re-emerged as it has periodically since the 1960s. The prospect of some kind of clear, simple universal income security program is alluring. Expressions of interest from all parts of the political spectrum suggest a potential political consensus on a guaranteed income, which is as unusual as it is attractive.
Where does SPNO’s position on poverty eradication and inequality fit in this current discourse? Does the Basic Income approach require us to abandon or re-think our public policy stance since 2007? How should SPNO position itself on this issue as the new provincial government takes office and the federal election approaches in 2015?
If “basic” income means establishing a floor of income adequacy that enables individuals and families to maintain their health and dignity by meeting the cost of daily living needs, then clearly SPNO supports such policy. Some part of the population disconnected from the labour market temporarily or permanently by their situation and personal circumstances (e.g. single parents, persons with disabilities) will require income support programs at basic, adequate levels to ensure that they do not live in poverty. Most will depend on some form of paid work to get by. Too many of these community members in part-time and precarious employment at minimum wage levels cannot meet their basic daily living needs with their earnings.
Social policy emphasizing the workforce as the route out of poverty subjects people to low wage and precarious work and promotes “workfare” for those dependent on income supports, while reliance on income support programs only inevitably sets rates well below adequacy in terms of basic living requirements. How can labour market and income support policy work together to ensure that poverty is eradicated for all in Ontario?
We already have income support models that recognize the relationship between work and income for vulnerable parts of the population. Old Age Security and the Guaranteed Income Supplement for retiring workers introduced in the 1970s to supplement private pension income and CPP benefits had a major impact on reducing seniors’ poverty to below 4%, and were indexed to protect their purchasing power against inflation. Granted, the GIS and CPP need enhancement now to maintain these gains.
It is possible to extend this supplemental income support approach to other stages of life in which people have varying attachments to the workforce. We can think of strategies for decent work and basic income across all stages of the life cycle, which recognize an appropriate and mutually reinforcing relationship between labour market participation and income support requirements as the following suggests:
- Children and youth (0-25) – Income support for this stage in life is important largely in the context of supporting young people in their families. A full National Child Benefit for families recognizes the need for lower income families to have help with the additional costs of raising children (Campaign 2000’s call for increasing the current maximum of $3200/child up to 18 years to $5,500 is consistent with the Basic Income approach suggestion). A Youth Income Benefit for young people 18 to 25 years would enable “debt free” learning and training opportunities and transition to work in their formative years.
- Early and middle adulthood (25-55) – Working age and family adults need positive work experiences in their early adult years and social engagement through employment that allows them to make important civic contributions. It should be a requirement of public policy that decent work with living wages and sound social protections (pension, health, and other social insurances) be available to all working age adults. Working age adults without decent work should have the assurance of community and civic employment at living wages through the non-profit and local public services sectors. Decent work is becoming ever less available in the low wage labour markets of the corporate sector.
- Later adulthood (55+) – Begin to extend eligibility for the GIS down from full retirement years to this stage of adulthood. This would protect incomes as needed for adults phasing down from active engagement in the labour market prior to full retirement. The GIS must be upgraded for those fully withdrawn from the workforce when their incomes after OAS and CPP and other pension income are inadequate. This would restore full poverty elimination for seniors, a Canadian legacy first achieved in the 1970s.
- Appropriate income and service frameworks must be available to support the extraordinary social circumstances for persons with disabilities and persons with chronic physical and mental health conditions.
This approach does not substitute income for employment earnings, nor does it compel workforce participation in order receive income support. It recognizes that earnings from employment are an important component of maintaining a livelihood, but that that labour market detachment at any stage of the life cycle should not condemn one to poverty. Both wage protections and income guarantees are required.
Reframing Decent Work
Since 2007 (and for many of us a decade or more before), SPNO and its cross-community partners in the PFO network have focused a lot of attention on income adequacy – increasing social assistance rates to end deep poverty; raising the minimum wage to get full-time, full-year earners above the poverty line. This concentrated attention has led to some gains and movement of the policy debates in a good direction but we may be allowing ourselves to remain confined to “minimalist” positions when it comes to framing what we think decent work should be. Notably, more communities are not just advocating for raising the minimum wage but are also for work at a “living wage”.
The availability of good and decent jobs should be seen as much of a challenge today as it was at the height of the industrial revolution in the 19th century.[4] Today, in a post-industrial society, good and decent jobs seem a faint hope. Our youth in particular struggle to establish any secure foothold in the labour market, and, even with higher levels of education, remain subject to mostly short-term and precarious employment. In the face of increasing tuition and living costs for post-secondary education, many youth accumulate high levels of debt and graduate into an economy that offers mostly poor paying service jobs. We are at risk of condemning our younger generations in particular to dismal, unfulfilling futures and chronic spells of poverty and exclusion. Productive employment in these formative early years of labour force participation is critical.
While good jobs in the traditional economy appear to be scarce, there is no lack of work needed to create a truly sustainable society. It is time to reframe the notion of good jobs in terms of work that needs to be done to build and strengthen our social and civic infrastructure. We need to re-balance our economy from one tilted heavily towards private wealth creation and concentration to one of collective stewardship of our human and financial resources offering shared opportunity for all.
Quality employment guarantees are critical for youth and younger adults as they enter the workforce supplemented with income programs as they make transitions through their working lives. Government incentives and partnerships with the private sector (retail, commercial, industrial) should be directed toward the creation and support of decent, well-paying, career development jobs. There is hope that the private sector might recognize its role in contributing to a collective purpose that adequately compensates workers while securing a fair return on investment.
Realistically, however, we should look to city governments and the community sector to show leadership, as the City of Seattle is doing by making a commitment to the highest minimum wage ($15/hour) in North America in response to a strong community advocacy movement.[5] Even recently here in Ontario, the Put Food in the Budget campaign mobilized across communities to secure resolutions in support of the $100/month Healthy Food Supplement in 25 city councils, which was cited by the Social Assistance Review Commissioners in their own recommendation in support of the HFS.
After forty years of market-driven neo-liberal social and economic policy, it is time to disengage from the tyranny of global capital and to restore social justice from the ground up with a Civic Declaration on decent work and basic incomes for all. As in Seattle, city governments and the community sector must join their voices to demand senior government support for good jobs in business and in public services. The continued importance of work by nurses, teachers, firefighters and librarians as well as in the social, environmental, recreational and arts and culture sectors must be respected. Governments should support community and civic employment strategies in the public and non-profit sectors that enable youth and younger adults to start life with a solid foundation of productive employment that builds and strengthens our social, cultural and environmental infrastructure. Civic Declarations directed to this collective purpose would both stimulate economic development and grow the next generation of an active and engaged citizenry.
We have a common stake in creating communities of shared opportunity for all. Investing in work that protects and enhances our environment, supports civic and community well-being, and grows local economies will produce social and economic benefits for all. Pursuing this path will demand the activation of a collective stewardship that engages all parts of the community in a discussion of how to work together for the common good. What work needs to be done to create and sustain the kinds of communities that we want to live in? What can business, labour, civic and community leaders do to contribute to that shared purpose? How can the role of the non-profit sector be expanded as a source of decent work and sustainable development?
Creating Communities of Shared Opportunity
We need to re-frame decent work and basic incomes in terms of solidarity, with a mission to create communities of shared opportunity for all across Ontario, while recognizing the complexity of actual human experience through different stages of the life-cycle. We have an obligation to offer other guarantees, most critically that our younger generations will have the opportunity to make their contribution to sustainable social and economic development through the application of their energies, skills and talents in the public, civic, non-profit, and corporate sectors.
We call on cities and communities to lead the way in framing Civic Declarations for decent work and basic incomes to eradicate poverty within this decade, and to create communities of shared opportunity for all across Ontario.
To this end, it is proposed that the Social Planning Network of Ontario join with its network of community leaders and organizations in Poverty Free Ontario to engage our communities in a discussion of the central tenets of a Civic Declaration, to test its resonance as a herald for structural change, and to explore its implications for both local and cross-community ground-swelling action for social justice in Ontario.
Peter Clutterbuck
Marvyn Novick
For further information contact:
Peter Clutterbuck, SPNO Senior Community Planning Consultant
(416) 653-7947 cell (416) 738-3228
pclutterbuck@spno.ca
Web site: www.povertyfreeontario.ca
[1] http://www.workersactioncentre.org/issues/minimum-wage/
[2] http://putfoodinthebudget.ca/
[3] A 4% increase to the OW Basic Needs Allowance in the 2013 provincial budget ($26/month) was the first real income increase for OW recipients since the 1995 cuts of 22%, all other 1%-2% adjustments since 2003 being for cost of living, and at that were below the annual rate of inflation in several of those years.
[4] Industrial manufacturing jobs in the 19th century were low paying and conducted in unsafe and unhealthy working conditions until unions organized for collective action among labourers and social reformers introduced public controls and regulations for improved employment
[5] http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jun/07/seattle-minimum-wage-fifteen-dollars-fight; http://prospect.org/article/revolt-cities
Ontario ‘recommits’ to tackling child poverty
TORONTO – After failing to meet their own child poverty reduction strategy target — and blaming it on the Stephen Harper government and the economy — the Ontario Liberals are now pledging to eradicate homelessness.
Deputy Premier Deb Matthews acknowledged Wednesday that her government failed to meet a goal it set in 2008 to reduce child poverty in Ontario by 25% in five years.
“We knew that one level of government could not achieve that ambitious goal all by itself so we laid out a very clear plan on how to meet that target,” Matthews said. “We as a province did our part, we did everything we said we would do when we released that strategy in 2008.
“And had the other elements of the strategy — particularly the responsibilities we believe lie with the federal government — had the federal government done its part we would have come very close if not have achieved our goal of a 25% reduction in child poverty.”
In “Breaking the Cycle,” the government of Dalton McGuinty asked the federal government to double the Working Income Tax Benefit and increase the National Child Benefit Supplement to help the province meet the target.
Matthews said almost 50,000 children and their parents have been lifted out of poverty through measures undertaken by her government, such as full-day kindergarten, a minimum wage hike and increases in the Ontario Child Benefit.
The original goal had been to move 90,000 kids out of poverty.
Matthews said her government “recommits” to reducing child poverty put won’t set a date.
In addition, Matthews said the government plans to wipe out homelessness, although there was no deadline provided on that commitment either, and the minister said she would consult with experts before proceeding with a plan.
Doris Grinspun, executive director of the Registered Nurses’ Association of Ontario (RNAO), said that even if the government was not prepared to set new target dates for reducing child poverty and eliminating homelessness, it could at least dedicate 1% of its budget to related initiatives.
Tory MPP Jim McDonell said the Liberals are making promises they can’t keep.
“Today’s announcement sets no targets and that means they have no serious commitment to tackle poverty in Ontario. Vulnerable Ontarians are looking for action and a realistic plan,” McDonell said.
NDP MPP Cheri DiNovo said the government has no one to blame but itself in failing to meet child poverty reduction targets.
In Ontario, 130,000 children used a food bank over the past month, and thousands languish on waiting lists for affordable housing, she said.
DiNovo said she was homeless as a child, and she scoffed at Matthews’ comment that more research is needed before implementing a plan.
“I can tell you what homelessness looks like — it looks like you don’t have a house,” DiNovo said.
Peter Clutterbuck, of Poverty Free Ontario, said the coalition has called for significant hikes to social assistance rates which, after inflation, have only risen about 4% since 2003, the year the Liberals gained government.
Matthews’ goal of eliminating homelessness is an admirable one but what’s needed now is action and funds, Clutterbuck said.
By Antonella Artuso, Queen’s Park Bureau Chief
http://www.lfpress.com/2014/09/03/ontario-recommits-to-cutting-child-poverty
Toronto child poverty rate at ‘epidemic’ levels
TORONTO – Child poverty in Toronto has reached “epidemic” levels with 29 per cent of children — almost 149,000 — living in low-income families, according to new data being released Wednesday by a coalition of community activists and social agencies.
Among Canada’s 13 major cities, Toronto is tied with Saint John, N.B., as having the highest child poverty rate, the coalition says.
Across Toronto, almost 40 per cent of the city’s 140 neighbourhoods have child poverty rates of 30 per cent or more, according to the coalition’s analysis of Statistics Canada’s recently released 2012 tax filer data.
But neighourhood disparity varies dramatically — from 5 per cent in Leaside, Lawrence Park and the Kingsway to 50 per cent or more in Regent Park, Moss Park and Thorncliffe Park, the data show. And residents of African, Asian, Middle Eastern, Caribbean and Latin American background are more likely to be living in poverty.
Most troubling, however, is that after gradually decreasing to 27 per cent in 2010 from a high of 32 per cent in 2004, child poverty in the city is on the rise, the coalition says.
The alarming statistics cry out for strong municipal leadership, starting in the mayor’s office, says the coalition, which includes the Alliance for a Poverty-Free Toronto, Children’s Aid Society of Toronto, Family Service Toronto, Social Planning Toronto and others.
The groups have invited leading mayoral candidates to address the issue at a community event in downtown Toronto on Thursday morning and to sign a pledge in support of city council’s unanimous April 2014 motion to develop a poverty reduction strategy for the city by early 2015.
“We want to make sure that mayoral candidates and city council candidates recognize the severity and the importance of the issue,” said Laurel Rothman, of Family Service Toronto.
“Now is the time for the next mayor of Toronto to take political leadership of this important work and deliver results,” she added.
The coalition’s analysis is part of a larger report on child poverty it is planning to release this fall as the city develops its larger strategy.
“The fact that in 2011 and now again in 2012 we see no reduction but an increase in the number of children living in low-income families is quite disturbing,” said Michael Polanyi of the Toronto CAS.
“The hope was we were coming out of the economic downturn,” he said. “But it doesn’t seem to be translating to improvements in the lives of children.”
Toronto single mother Veronica Snooks, 51, struggled to raise five children in poverty.
Although her children are now adults and only her youngest, a 20-year-old son, still lives with her, Snooks worries about other families following in her footsteps.
The city’s lack of affordable housing meant she stayed in abusive relationships longer than she should have, causing her to lose her children to child welfare and spiral into addiction and depression.
“You stay longer because of poverty. It just seems easier to take the abuse,” she said. “We suffer for our children.”
Snooks, who moved into a Toronto Community Housing townhouse in Flemingdon Park eight years ago, credits the affordable rent and social programs aimed at assisting single moms for helping her beat her addictions and turn her life around.
However, her low-income neighbourhood, where 46 per cent of families live in poverty, is often “like living in the midst of a fire with all the police and drug busts,” she said.
“I love the community, but not the way we are treated by police and housing management,” she said.
The coalition’s analysis is the first detailed look at child poverty in the city since a 2008 report by the Toronto CAS.
But unlike that earlier report, which compared Toronto to other GTA cities, the current analysis looks at how the city stacks up nationally.
“We’re the highest in terms of poverty, but we’re also the highest in terms of wealth and opportunity,” Rothman noted. “We need to make sure that the wealth and opportunity is also spread widely and deeply.”
The analysis is based on Statistics Canada’s After-Tax Low-Income Measure, (LIM-AT) which represents households living on less than half of the median household income after taxes in the city. In 2010, the LIM-AT for a single person in Toronto was $19,460 and $27,521 for a single parent with one child. It was $38,920 for a family of four.
The coalition’s Toronto child poverty rates are not comparable to provincial and federal child poverty data because groups tracking those rates use census and StatsCan’s Survey of Labour and Income Dynamics data.
Urgent: Community-Based Housing and Homelessness Funding
This is a letter from 27 organizations in communities across Ontario.
Dear Premier Wynne, Minister Jeffrey, Minister Piruzza, and Minister McMeekin,
We are writing as a coalition of concerned organizations to urge you to respond without delay to the growing crisis in housing and homelessness across Ontario. While there are many housing needs across the province, we need your government to commit – as quickly as possible and before the new year – to make permanent $42 million in “transition funding” for critically important housing and homelessness funds administered by municipalities under the Community Homelessness Prevention Initiative (CHPI).
Municipalities across Ontario are in the midst of planning their budgets for the coming year. Decisions about housing and homelessness funding will be made very soon. Municipalities – and the low income Ontarians who live in them – need your guarantee that you are on their side.
Municipalities have been given the responsibility and flexibility to respond to their communities’ housing and homelessness issues through CHPI. But they can’t adequately respond to the need in their communities if the funds are not there to do the job.
When the Community Start-Up and Maintenance Benefit (CSUMB) was eliminated from social assistance beginning in January 2013, only half of previously designated funds ($67 million in 2013-14) were transferred to CMSMs and DSSABs, using a formula that didn’t respond to real time housing needs.
Some municipalities responded to the loss of CSUMB by creating their own, similar funds to provide direct funding for first and last month’s rent, rental and utilities arrears, and other costs that ensure people are able to become housed or stay in their homes. Eligibility criteria and funded costs vary across the province, as do amounts of funding provided. Some municipalities did not create their own locally administered funds, so low income Ontarians in those communities have no source of direct support.
In December 2012, government responded to community concern by instituting a onetime $42 million “transition fund” to help municipalities deal with the loss of CSUMB and the move to community-based homelessness prevention. Those funds run out in March 2014.
In some areas of the province, designated funds for this purpose may have been underspent. This does not indicate a lack of need in communities, but rather the reality that the roll-out of the transition to CHPI funding was plagued with difficulties, resulting in many low income people either not attempting to access or being denied direct funding for their housing and homelessness-related needs. The transition to CHPI funding was also complicated by the new cap put on discretionary benefits. More funding is required for municipalities to find the right balance to provide for the need in their communities, and for low income Ontarians to become aware of funds that might be available.
While the $42 million will not replace CSUMB, it will go some way to ensuring that low income people in communities across Ontario will have the funds they need to secure housing and to prevent losing their housing, due directly to lack of income. The ripple effects of the devastating loss of CSUMB continue to be felt across the province. Low income Ontarians need your government’s guarantee that funds they need to get housing or stay housed will be there when they need them. The least they deserve is to have the additional $42 million in transition funding made permanently available to municipalities.
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Contact:
Jennefer Laidley
Research & Policy Analyst
Income Security Advocacy Centre
425 Adelaide Street West, 5th Floor
Toronto, Ontario M5V 3C1
ISAC website: www.incomesecurity.org
Social Assistance Review website: www.sareview.ca
Phone: 416-597-5820 x 5155
Fax: 416-597-5821
Email: laidleyj@lao.on.ca
Ontario Government proposes more Poverty Reduction consultations; community groups say it’s time for Premier Wynne to act
Five years after Ontario’s Liberal Government announced a Poverty Reduction Strategy, hundreds of thousands of people still don’t have enough money to pay their rent and buy their food. Food bank usage in Ontario is at record levels – rising from 374,000 people per month in 2008 to 413,000 in 2012, including 160,000 children.[1]
Despite holding multiple consultations about poverty reduction and social assistance reform, the Liberal Government has consistently ignored thousands of community members:
- In the spring and summer of 2008, more than 75 community consultations on poverty reduction were held across Ontario, including 44 with MPPs.[2] Community representatives consistently delivered the message that livable incomes and a minimum wage to raise a full-time, full-year worker out of poverty were critical to poverty reduction. The Liberal Government of Premier McGuinty ignored this input.
- In late 2008, people in communities across Ontario urged the government to set a target for poverty reduction in general – not just child poverty. Children live in families, they pointed out, and reducing overall poverty will inevitably help children. This message was ignored, and the government’s target of lifting 90,000 children out of poverty is short by 48,000 as of 2011.[3]
- In 2011 and 2012, four out of five community briefs to the Commission on Social Assistance Reform argued that adequate social assistance rates was a primary issue.[4] The final report of Commissioners Frances Lankin and Munir Sheikh recommended an immediate rate increase of $100/month. The Liberal government of Premier Wynne was deaf to its own commissioners: the 2013 budget increased social assistance to recipients of Ontario Works benefits by only $14/month.
Dalton McGuinty’s last act as Premier was to cut the Community Start-Up and Maintenance Benefit, which further worsened the destitution of Ontario’s most vulnerable.
Now, after five years of the Liberal Government failing to deliver on social assistance reform, it lacks credibility to call for more consultation in the absence of action on what the community has recommended to date.
We believe Premier Wynne does not need any further consultation to reduce poverty in Ontario. The Liberal government can respond now to the core demands that people from communities across Ontario have been making for five years. Our participation in any consultations on a new poverty reduction strategy will be to assert three core demands.
Our Demands
Premier Wynne government can reduce poverty and demonstrate her commitment to social justice by acting on the following:
- Raise the rates
- Immediately increase the base rate of social assistance by $100 a month without paying for it by cutting other benefits.
- Restore the Community Start-Up and Maintenance Benefit.
- Protect the well-being of people with disabilities
- Discuss the Commission on Social Assistance Reform recommendations regarding ODSP with community advocacy groups representing people with disabilities.
- Reduce poverty for everyone
- Raise the minimum wage now to 10% above the poverty line.
- Set targets that reduce and eventually end poverty for everyone – children, families and communities.
Commitment to Social Justice
We are committed to social justice for people in Ontario who live in poverty. We will not stop until poverty is ended.
A social justice strategy to end poverty requires providing people with enough money for food, housing and everything else that ensures a life of health and dignity.
It is time for Premier Wynne to demonstrate her commitment to social justice with constructive social and economic policies. She can begin by acting on our three demands.
For further information, contact:
Peter Clutterbuck, Poverty Free Ontario
(416) 653-7947
pclutterbuck@spno.ca
Province Playing Welfare Shell Game
Re: Ontario takes a pass on real welfare reform, Opinion May 6
Carol Goar appears to have it right, although I would not agree that community advocates and social assistance recipients across the province are just relieved that the budget did not lead to further cuts.
There is a strong sense of disappointment that the previously expressed social justice convictions of the new premier have not moved from rhetoric to action and that the NDP leader never advocated for the interests of Ontario’s poorest with the same vigour as for its car owners.
Goar’s sources indicate that Premier Kathleen Wynne was ready to offer a $100 a month benefit increase to those on the lowest rate but this was derailed by the community’s “lobby” for keeping the special diet allowance. This, of course, is the usual game of playing off one part of the caseload, impoverished single adults without work, against the other, disabled people with medical dietary needs. Some justice.
In fact, our group, which represents voices for welfare reform in 25 communities across the province, recommended to the government that the $100 a month be introduced over this and the next budget year in two $50 installments so that rate increases would not have to be paid for by cutting the special diet allowance.
It is a strange notion of social justice that asks disabled people with medical needs to sacrifice essential health supports in order to begin to relieve the deep poverty of single adults not in the labour market.
Peter Clutterbuck, Poverty Free Ontario, Toronto
PFO Bulletin #12 – PFO on the 2013 Ontario Budget
Budget provisions inadequate but . . .
Community gets Government attention on single adults
After several years of community advocacy, the Ontario Government finally acknowledged in its 2013 Budget that single adults on social assistance are living in especially severe conditions of hardship and hunger. Once again, the Government adjusted social assistance rates by 1%, the current rate of inflation, but added a $14 top-up for single adults without children on Ontario Works.
Community advocates for a poverty-free Ontario have been campaigning since 2009 for benefit increases that would begin to relieve the tremendous deprivation of single adults living in deep poverty at less than 40% of the official Ontario poverty line. They can finally claim a clear breakthrough with the Government on the plight of single adults, even if the actual rate increases this year are not at the level needed.
Contending that the Government was taking a “balanced approach” to achieving “prosperity” and “fairness,” Finance Minister Charles Sousa actually tips the balance in the direction of continuing austerity.
In March, an assembly of more than 100 Poverty Free Ontario partners from more than 20 communities across the province framed a Six-Point Plan for a social justice budget. Measuring the 2013 Budget against the PFO Plan shows some minimal gestures towards social justice, but no clear leadership or firm conviction to pursue a social justice agenda for the most vulnerable Ontarians living in deep poverty.
Measuring the Budget against the Six Point Plan for Social Justice in Ontario
1) Increase the Basic Needs Allowance by $100/month for OW and ODSP recipients as the first step towards adequacy in social assistance rates.
Clearly, the Government has come nowhere close to the $100/month rate increase for which PFO has been advocating especially for single adults on OW/ODSP, a group entirely neglected in the 2008 Poverty Reduction Strategy. A $14 top-up for single adults on OW on a general overall adjustment of 1% does, at least, indicate that this part of the social assistance caseload is now on the Government’s radar.
Still, these provisions are again misrepresented in the Budget as rate “increases”, when, in fact, they are partly a cost of living adjustment to maintain the purchasing power of current rates.[1] The additional 1% for 2013 in the Ontario Budget does match the year over year increase in the Consumer Price Index at March 2013 and will provide $6.06 more a month to a single adult on Ontario Works. The $14 top-up will bring the single rate up by $20/month to $626.06, which for the first time since 1995 will be an increase in the real income for single adults (2.3%).
While not the $100/month increase that PFO has been pushing for, this is at least a small step towards real rather than strictly inflationary increases.
ODSP single adults, however, do not appear to be included in the $14/month top-up, the shocking rationale being that this will “begin to reduce the disparity in rates between ODSP and OW recipients.” (p. 91). This is an early signal that the potential future “harmonization” of the OW and ODSP caseloads would be more about reducing benefits to the lowest common denominator than moving all recipients in the direction of decent living standards.
2) Index OW and ODSP rates, starting immediately, to keep up with the annual inflation rate.
The 2013 Ontario Budget once more provides a discretionary one-year commitment to a cost of living adjustment but does not index social assistance rates to the cost of living in the same way that seniors’ benefits are adjusted annually to the rising cost of living. Especially in a year when the actual increased cost of living is low compared to previous years (1% compared to the 2%+ range in previous years), the Government missed an opportunity to show not only a strong gesture towards fairness but also a confidence in its economic recovery program to cover off cost of living adjustments for social assistance recipients in future years.
3) Ensure that all increases to social assistance or changes arising from the proposed integration of the current programs do not lead to any reductions in basic needs and housing allowances for persons currently receiving ODSP and Ontario Works, or to cuts in benefits such as the Special Diet Allowance or the Disability Worker’s Benefit.
There is nothing in the 2013 Budget that indicates any of the provisions will be implemented at the cost of existing programs such as the Special Diet Allowance or the Disability Workers’ Benefit. This is encouraging, although measuring success by what programs are saved is a comment in itself on our state of mind in an austerity climate. The community should remain vigilant that these programs are not threatened as budget provisions become implemented.
4) Introduce an earnings exemption for social assistance recipients with working hours so that a 50% clawback on earnings does not apply on at least the first $200/month earnings, and preferably not on the first $500.
It has been known for several months that the Government intended to allow social assistance recipients with working hours to keep the first $200/month of earnings without a clawback on their OW/ODSP benefit. This is one of the minor recommendations of the Social Assistance Review, and will make a difference in the lives of social assistance recipients with some working hours. To its credit, the Government will clawback earnings higher than $200 monthly at a rate of 50% and not 57% as recommended by the Social Assistance Review Commissioners. Frankly, it is unconscionable that any clawback applies to recipients who find work until their earnings begin to approach the poverty line.
5) Commit to the principle that the minimum wage should ensure a full time, full year worker earns an annual income 10% above the Ontario Income Poverty Line [LIM 50], and to an implementation plan that will achieve that goal.
The 2013 Budget makes no changes in the minimum wage and promises only to study the issue for possible future action by setting up an Advisory Panel. It is difficult to take the Government’s commitment to job creation seriously if it allows minimum wage earners working full-year, full-time to still fall about $1,000 below the poverty line annually. The Raise the Minimum Wage campaign has made the case definitively for bringing the minimum wage to 10% above the poverty line, and there is more than enough evidence that this will stimulate the economy and not cost jobs.
The Government shows only timidity here when it should be showing leadership and bold action. The community should call for the terms of reference of the Minimum Wage Advisory Panel to include a plan for raising the minimum wage over a reasonable period of time to 10% above the official poverty line for full-time, full-year earners.
6) Index the minimum wage immediately to keep up with the annual inflation rate.
Without any action on point #5, there was, of course, no action on this front either.
Related Budget Provisions
The 2013 Ontario Budget contains other measures related to PFO’s Six Point Plan:
- While the Budget document avoids the use of the term “adequacy” when speaking of social assistance rates, it states that the Government will follow up on the Commissioners’ recommendation to develop “benchmarks to support a consistent method for setting social assistance rates in the future” (p. 91). Presumably, this will be done by setting up an independent “rates board” as previously championed by MPP Ted McMeekin, now the Minister of Community and Social Services. If this is the latest route to rate adequacy in what seems to be an interminable journey, the community should insist that the rates board report out well before the next budget cycle is complete on the rate targets necessary to achieve adequacy and a two-three year timeline for getting there, with the first significant instalment due in the 2014 Budget.
- The Budget increases liquid asset limits for single adults on OW from $606 to $2,500 and for couples from $1,043 to $5,000, a long overdue measure first proposed in the 2008 Poverty Reduction Strategy. OW recipients will be allowed to receive gifts of up to $6,000 per year without affecting their benefits, which provides some relief from what has amounted to a tax on contributions from family and friends to the well-being of social assistance recipients.
- The Budget is picking up on its implementation schedule of staged increases to the Ontario Child Benefit after a one-year hiatus in the 2012 Budget, increasing the maximum OCB benefit to $1,210 per eligible child this year and a final increase to $1,310 in July 2014. This is one year later than promised in the 2008 Poverty Reduction Strategy and the 2009 Budget.
Fairness Demands Bolder Action
There was hopeful talk during the lead-up to this Budget that the Government may be considering some actual moderate increases in taxes or restoration of corporate taxes that have cost the public treasury so much in recent years. It is disappointing that the 2013 Ontario Budget promised to retain the tax cuts that have been implemented, while boasting that for yet another year its deficit is projected to come in under original projections by several billion dollars.
A truly balanced approach between prosperity and fairness would acknowledge that the Government has some fiscal room for greater fairness to the most vulnerable in Ontario by its faster than anticipated progress in reducing the deficit. Applying even less than one-third of the resources available from the ahead of schedule deficit reduction to Ontario’s poorest citizens would not only improve their health and well-being but would also contribute significantly to stimulating local economies across the province.
Social assistance reform was proposed by the Government in its 2008 Poverty Reduction Strategy. After five years of study and consultations and as the Government sets up another Cabinet Committee to develop a second Poverty Reduction Strategy as required by legislation, it is a sad commentary that such minimal progress on social assistance reform has been made. The path to real improvement in the material living conditions of Ontario’s poorest is proving to be long and tortuous. It demands a Government and Parliament with both the conviction and the courage to show strong leadership on a social justice agenda.
Community advocates for people living in deep and working poverty across the province can take some credit for the small gains made in the 2013 Budget. We got the Government’s attention. We now need to help embolden its commitment to further serious reform.
For further information contact:
Peter Clutterbuck, SPNO Coordinator
(416) 653-7947 cell (416) 738-3228
pclutterbuck@spno.ca
Web site: www.povertyfreeontario.ca
[1] The 1% cost of living adjustment takes effect in September 2013 for ODSP recipients and in October 2013 for OW beneficiaries, which is also the month that the $14 top-up is introduced.
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