B.C. parents on assistance able to keep federal cash
The Daily News (Kamloops)
27 June 2006
By: Cam Fortems
EXCERPT

Parents on income assistance with small children will get a double-digit income boost when universal child-care benefit cheques arrive in July.

Claude Richmond, minister of employment and income assistance, said the province decided not to classify the $100 monthly cheques for each child under six as income.

"They'll keep it," the Kamloops MLA said Monday. "It's money for children and we won't claw it back."

TORY POLICY

... The benefit was a major part of the Conservative platform before this year's election. At the same time the Tories dumped a child-care partnership with the provinces that created subsidized spaces.

A fact sheet from the Canada Customs and Revenue Agency states each province determines whether the child-care benefit is clawed back from assistance cheques.

Richmond said the payments won't be classified as income. While people with disabilities are allowed to earn up to $500 a month income without penalty, those considered employable are otherwise docked welfare benefits if they earn outside income.

'IT'S AN IMPROVEMENT'

The child-care benefit will mean a large boost to the meagre incomes of those collecting welfare. A single parent with two preschool age children will receive another $200 a month on top of a welfare cheque of $880 a month -- an increase of nearly 25 per cent.

"It's an improvement," said Nick Istvanffy, a researcher with the Social Planning and Research Council of B.C.

"In the past with the Canada Tax Benefit, although they don't claw it back directly, they reduce the rate."

Families with children also receive about $250 a month on the B.C. family bonus.

RATES UNCHANGED

Income assistance rates in B.C. have not risen since 1992, when a single adult was judged in need of $510 a month.

Istvanffy noted that even with the child-care bonus, which will evaporate once a child enters Grade 1, B.C.'s rates fall far below what's needed to get by. A report by SPARC called Left Behind determined an income of $2,500 is needed by a family of four with two children under five.

"It's a step in the right direction for people living hand to mouth," he said.