¹On August 1, 1997, Newfoundland reduced the liquid asset exemptions for a single unemployable person from $2,500 to $1,500 and reduced the exemption for a single unemployable parent with one dependant from $5,000 to $2,500.

²In Prince Edward Island, single applicants were not considered unemployable unless they were disabled.

³ For unemployed applicants who require assistance for less than four months, the exemption is $50 a month. For a single person on assistance for four months or more, the liquid asset exemption level is $200.

⁴This level applies to unemployed applicants with families who require assistance for less than four months. For persons with dependants who are on welfare for four months or more, liquid asset exemption levels are $1,200 to $2,400, depending on family size.

⁵This exemption applies to single persons over 60 years of age who are not eligible for the Old Age Security pension. Nova Scotia does not consider single applicants unemployable unless they are disabled. Married persons with a disabled partner may keep assets of $5,500.

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⁶Quebec revised its test for liquid assets in 1998. Under the system in place from 1996 to 1998, liquid assets had to be below the monthly amount of welfare that a person would have qualified to receive. As of 1998, Quebec set standard maximum liquid asset amounts according to family size. If the applicant's assets – including expected income from other sources during the month of application – falls below the maximum, the welfare cheque for that month is calculated based on the rest of the days left in that month. Employment Insurance payments are exempt from the calculation. Heat and utility costs are subtracted from the total assets. Exemptions are uniform regardless of disability and work expectations.

⁷The "unemployable" category is the Ontario Disability Support Program; the "employable" category is Ontario Works, which underwent changes in 1998. Ontario may allow households applying for or in receipt of welfare to exceed the maximum exemption level if the savings will be used for an item Ontario deems necessary for the well-being of a member of the household, for example, a specially equipped van or an electric wheelchair.

⁸The provincial government has taken over the administration of welfare in the City of Winnipeg. The provincial Municipal Assistance Regulation does not allow any liquid asset exemption for applicants. In areas where the municipal government administers the program, it has the discretion to allow an exemption of up to $400 per person to a maximum of $2,000 per household, once a person or family has qualified for assistance.

⁹The level of $3,000 applies to a person with one dependant. There is an additional $500 liquid asset exemption for each additional dependant.

¹⁰This rate refers to people who receive welfare under the Supports for Independence program. Alberta grants an exemption of up to $3,000 if a person is severely and permanently disabled and has high needs because of the costs of personal support services. Most people with severe disabilities receive benefits under the Assured Income for the Severely Handicapped (AISH) program, rather than welfare. In October 1999, the asset limit for AISH was $100,000.

¹¹These exemption levels apply to British Columbia welfare recipients under age 55. The liquid asset exemption for single recipients 55 and older is $3,000. There is an additional $500 liquid asset exemption for each additional dependant.

¹² The exemption level for employables applies to people on assistance for less than 90 days. Higher levels are permitted for those on assistance for more than

6

Every province and territory uses a different method of calculating basic social assistance, which generally includes food, clothing, shelter, utilities, and an allowance for personal and household needs.

Applicants and recipients may be eligible for extra assistance in most provinces and territories if they have special needs such as medication, prosthetic devices, technical aids and equipment, special clothing or dental care. Welfare departments provide cash or "in kind" support in the form of vouchers, goods or services.

Sometimes applicants require assistance only for a special-needs item such as medication but they are able to provide for other basic needs from their own resources. In such cases, a province or territory may grant the specific amount that the household requires, provided that the applicants are eligible under the needs test.

Every province and territory has a list of special needs for which it will provide extra assistance. In some cases, only a portion of the cost of a particular item is paid. For example, the province may reimburse a certain percentage of dental costs, and the recipient is expected to pay the remaining amount.

Across Canada, welfare officials have some degree of discretion in deciding whether certain households qualify for special assistance under provincial or territorial welfare regulations. Discretion is both a strength and weakness of the welfare system. On one hand, welfare recognizes the fact that individuals may have ongoing or one-time special needs for which they require assistance. On the other hand, a person with special needs may be considered eligible for extra assistance by one welfare worker, but not by another.

Table 2 presents a national picture of estimated welfare incomes for 1999. The incomes shown are for the basic needs of four household types: a single employable person, a single disabled person, a single-parent family with a two-year-old child and a two-parent family with two children ten and 15 years of age. When we calculated the welfare incomes, we assumed that each of the households went on welfare on January 1, 1999 and remained on welfare for the entire calendar year.

The figures in the table must be interpreted with caution. They are estimates of what a particular family or a single person might receive. Welfare is a highly individualized program of income support, so every applicant could be eligible for a different amount of financial assistance because of the circumstances in his or her household.

It is especially important to understand the derivation of the social assistance figures in Column 1. These figures are both maximum and minimum amounts. They are maximum amounts in that they represent the highest level of welfare that a designated province or territory will provide to a given household unit for its basic living needs. These rates can be reduced in all provinces and territories for a number of reasons. For example, legislation in all jurisdictions allows welfare authorities to reduce, cancel or suspend benefits if an employable recipient refuses a reasonable job offer, or quits a job without just cause. In Quebec, the welfare department sometimes considers the financial support of young people to be the responsibility of their parents. In those cases, Quebec will reduce the assistance rate and demand a contribution from the parents of the welfare recipient.

These figures are also minimum amounts in that they do not generally include special-needs assistance to which a given household may be entitled, such as costs related to a disability or the cost of searching for a job.

The column called basic social assistance shows the basic welfare that eligible households are entitled to have. Basic assistance generally includes an amount for food, clothing, shelter, utilities, personal and household needs. The figures in the basic social assistance column also reflect the reduction in assistance caused by the clawback of the supplement to Canada Child Tax Benefit that began in July 1998.

To ensure to the greatest extent possible the comparability of the data, we made a number of assumptions in calculating basic assistance. These assumptions concerning recipient households include where people lived, the ages of the children, the employability of the household head, the type of housing and the case history.

A. RESIDENCE

The rates of social assistance shown for each province or territory are for the largest municipal area. This is because maximum shelter allowances vary by region in many jurisdictions. Households living in smaller municipalities often receive lower benefits because their shelter costs are lower than in large urban centres (and most shelter allowances are based on actual shelter costs). Some provinces and territories offer supplements to compensate welfare households living in remote areas for higher living costs.

B. AGES OF CHILDREN

Welfare rates for families with children in this report are based on the assumption that the child in the one-parent family is two years old and the children in the two-parent family are ten and 15 years old. Some provinces and territories vary a family's entitlement with the age of each child in the household.

C. EMPLOYABILITY OF THE HOUSEHOLD HEAD

In Table 2, we assigned short-term rates of assistance (which are generally lower than long-term rates) to single employable individuals and couples with children in all jurisdictions. The rates for single parents are based on the employability classifications in each province and territory.

In all jurisdictions, we have based our calculations on the assumption that the disabled person received welfare, not payments for special, long-term disability programs. In Alberta, for example, people with severe and permanent disabilities may be eligible for a special program called Assured Income for the Severely Handicapped (AISH), providing they can supply the province with medical proof of the severity of their disability. In April 2000, 25,000 Albertans received support from AISH, while 8,500 people who were classified as "not expected to work" received support from the regular welfare program.

D. TYPE OF HOUSING

We assumed that the welfare households in this report are tenants in the private rental market rather than homeowners or social housing tenants. We also assumed that they did not share their accommodation. All provinces and territories reduce welfare entitlements when recipient households live in subsidized housing or share their housing.

In Newfoundland, single able-bodied people are granted welfare only under room-and-board arrangements, which are much lower than the payments for renting an apartment. The monthly room-and-board rate is only $93 a month. Three-quarters of single employable people receiving welfare under the room-and-board rate receive extra payments because of extenuating circumstances as determined by the welfare department.

Where shelter allowances do not include the cost of utilities, we added the cost of utilities to the shelter rates. We used maximum shelter rates in all jurisdictions.

Saskatchewan paid welfare recipients the actual cost of their utilities up to a set maximum amount until 1993. After 1993, Saskatchewan paid the actual costs with no limits. In last year's version of this report, the figures showed the actual average amount the province paid to welfare recipients of each family type. In this year's edition, the rate is based on the actual December 1999 payment multiplied by twelve months.

One notable change occurred in the Northwest Territories. Until 1997, there were no maximum rates for shelter. The welfare department covered the cost of actual rents, and these varied widely in the North. As of January 1, 1997, the Northwest Territories created a new welfare program with maximum rents of $450 a month for the single employable and single disabled people, $1,100 for the single parent with one child, and $1,300 for the couple with two children. The Northwest Territories covers the actual cost of utilities, but the territorial government did not provide the National Council of Welfare with the typical amounts paid. The figures for basic assistance from 1997 and 1998 are therefore much lower than those for previous years. Officials from the Territories provided us with the actual average utilities payments for September 1999, so the 1999 figures represent the September payments multiplied by twelve.

E. CASE HISTORY

In order to "annualize" the rates for this report, we assumed that these four typical households started receiving welfare on January 1, 1999, and remained on assistance until the last day of each calendar year.

We calculated basic social assistance month by month for each category of recipient in each province and territory, taking into account increases or decreases in rates as of their effective dates within each year. We also assumed that welfare households did not have any income from paid work during the time they were on assistance.

F. SPECIAL ASSISTANCE

Welfare departments provide two kinds of assistance for special needs. Some supplementary allowances are paid automatically to recipients in certain groups, such as people with disabilities or parents with school-age children. These are the amounts that appear in the second column in Table 2. Examples of this type of special assistance include extra assistance for people with disabilities, money for school expenses, winter clothing allowances and Christmas allowances. The footnotes explain the special assistance in each jurisdiction.

Welfare departments also provide a second kind of assistance for one-time special needs, including items such as funeral expenses, moving costs or emergency home repairs. We have not included this type of special assistance in this report because the special needs are established on a case-by-case basis by individual welfare workers. In some cases, approval is required from an administrator, director or designated professional such as a doctor.

We have incorporated special assistance in Column 2 of Table 2 only when welfare departments would automatically provide it to certain recipients. If the welfare recipient has to provide special reasons to qualify for this assistance, our figures exclude it.

The child tax benefit system changed radically in recent years. Successive federal governments have moved to "target" their financial support to families at the lower end of the income spectrum. The federal child tax benefit column shows the basic Child Tax Benefit and the supplement, including increases on July 1, 1999.

In 1999, the federal government paid a basic annual benefit of $1,020 for each child under age 18 in most parts of Canada. Quebec and Alberta asked the federal government for different calculations of the basic benefits. In Quebec, payments vary according to the ages and number of children in each family. In Alberta, payments vary according to the ages of the children. In all provinces and territories, there was a supplementary annual benefit of up to $213 for each child under age seven.

As of July 1, 1998, the federal government provided all families with incomes under $20,921 with a supplement to the Canada Child Tax Benefit. If a family had one child, the supplement was $605 a year or $50.42 a month. Families with two children received a supplement of $1,010 a year or $84.16 a month. As of July 1, 1999, the supplement was $785 a year or $65.42 a month for a family with one child and $1,370 a year or $114.17 a month for a family with two children. Our calculations show the lower rate from January to June 1999 and the increase from July to December 1999.

Only those families on welfare who lived in Newfoundland and New Brunswick saw an increase in their incomes because of the supplement to the Canada Child Tax Benefit. The other provinces and territories clawed the money back in different ways. In Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia, Ontario, Manitoba, British Columbia, Yukon and the Northwest Territories, the welfare departments consider the supplement to be non-exempt income that triggers a cut in the families' welfare cheques. In Quebec, Saskatchewan and Alberta, the provincial governments have actually cut welfare benefits by the amount of the supplement to the Child Tax Benefit. In our calculations, we have shown the basic Canada Child Tax Benefit and the supplement under the column called Federal Child Tax Benefit and we have shown the deductions in the column for social assistance.

As a result of the clawback, the already complex system of welfare programs has become even more complicated. With all the new rules and variations in welfare across the country, it is now almost impossible for welfare recipients to be sure that they are receiving all the benefits to which they are entitled.

The National Council of Welfare is very concerned by the fact that the clawbacks under the Canada Child Tax Benefit discriminate against families on welfare. Our 1998 report, Child Benefits: Kids Are Still Hungry, estimated that only 36 percent of poor families with children would benefit from the Canada Child Tax Benefit. Fifty-nine percent of two-parent poor families but only 17 percent of poor single-parent families would be allowed to keep the benefit. As women head most single-parent families, we believe that this constitutes discrimination on the basis of gender.

The Newfoundland and Labrador Child and Family Benefit began in August 1999. The single-parent family with one child receives $17 a month and the two-parent family with two children receives $43 a month.

Nova Scotia uses the money it claws back from the supplement to the Canada Child Tax Benefit to support the Nova Scotia Child Benefit for all families with net annual incomes below $16,000. Beginning in July 1998, families received $250 a year for their first child and $168 for the second child. As of July 1999, families received $324 for the first child and $242 for the second child. Our calculations show the lower amount from January to June 1999 and the higher amount for July to December 1999.

In October 1997, New Brunswick introduced a provincial Child Tax Benefit worth $21 a child each month, retroactive to April 1997. There have been no increases to the Benefit since then.

Quebec provides a family allowance over and above the federal Child Tax Benefit. This was worth $81.25 a month for each child from January to July 1999, then $66.25 a month for each child from August 1999 on. Quebec also paid a special allowance to families worth $9.77 a month for the first child under six, a single-parent supplement and a supplement to the family allowance.

The Saskatchewan Benefit provided $75 a month for families with one child and $167 a month for families with two children until June 1999. In July 1999, Saskatchewan reduced this amount by the amount of the increase in the federal government's payment under the supplement to the Canada Child Tax Benefit. From July to December, these families received $60 a month and $137 a month respectively. Saskatchewan also provides an allowance of $35 a month to the single-parent family.

In July 1996, British Columbia introduced the BC Family Bonus as part of a package of initiatives known as BC Benefits. The Family Bonus is an income-tested monthly payment to all low-income families with children that have filed income tax returns for the previous year and have applied for the Child Tax Benefit. Families on welfare received $103 a month per child for January to June 1999 and $105 a month from July to December 1999 from the BC Family Bonus. This amount includes the federal government's contribution for the supplement to the Child Tax Benefit. BC reduced its basic welfare payment by the value of the BC Family Bonus.

Northwest Territories uses the money it claws back from the supplement to the Canada Child Tax Benefit to support the NWT Child Benefit for all families with net annual incomes below $20,921. Beginning in July 1998, families receive $330 annually for every child. The amount did not change in 1999.

The new territory of Nunavut adopted most of the welfare policies of the Northwest Territories. Its Nunavut Child Benefit provides $330 a year for each child.

Several provinces and territories also provide incentives to low-income workers with children. We have not included these programs in our calculations because we base our estimates on the welfare incomes of parents with no earned income.

The column for federal GST credit shows the federal refundable credit for the Goods and Services Tax or the federal portion of the Harmonized Sales Tax in the Atlantic provinces. The GST credit is paid quarterly. The four payments received in 1999 were worth a maximum of $199 annually for each adult or the first child in a single-parent family. For other dependent children, the total was a maximum of $105 a year for each child.

Single adults, including single parents, also received an income-tested supplement to a maximum of $105 in 1999 if their 1998 incomes were higher than $6,456.

The tax credits in Column 6 are the provincial government refund of the Harmonized Sales Tax in Newfoundland, the Sales and Property Tax Credits in Ontario and the Sales Tax Credit in British Columbia.