Welfare rates too low, activist group charges: Study suggests governments are doing less than ever to help the poor
Times Colonist (Victoria)
24 Aug 2006
By: Lindsay Kines

EXCERPT

As Victoria wrestles with what to do about panhandlers, a new study released today says governments, in many cases, are doing less to help the poor than ever before.

The National Council of Welfare says in its report that once figures are adjusted for inflation, B.C. and other provinces gave many welfare recipients less money last year than in 1986.

"Welfare incomes have never been close to adequate anywhere in Canada," the National Council of Welfare says in its annual Welfare Incomes report. "But the 1.7 million people -- half a million of whom are children -- who are forced to rely on welfare are being left farther and farther behind."

In an interview Wednesday, council chairman John Murphy called the situation a "catastrophe" for people on welfare. "Governments and the people of Canada, I think, have put people on welfare behind closed doors," he said.

"They are not being the least supportive at all, because these incomes now are well, well below the poverty line."

The council, a citizens advisory group to the federal government, says Canada needs a comprehensive anti-poverty strategy, higher levels of support, and an immediate end to the practice in B.C. and other provinces of "clawing back" federal child benefits from welfare recipients.

B.C.'s Employment and Income Assistance Minister Claude Richmond said Wednesday that his government tries to ensure that welfare rates "are where they should be" in relation to the rest of the country.

"In most categories they are; in some they're probably a little bit low," he said.

Richmond said rising wages and inflation make it difficult for governments to keep pace. "Incomes are going up dramatically, and if you compare it with that, I guess there probably isn't a jurisdiction in the country whose income assistance rates are keeping up with that."

He said his ministry has focused on boosting assistance to the disabled while offering programs to help employable welfare recipients return to the workforce. "In this day of very low unemployment and jobs being plentiful, it's pretty easy for those who want to work to find work," he said.

But NDP children's critic Maurine Karagianis said the report highlights the B.C. Liberal government's "shameful" record. It's small wonder, she said, that people are begging on the streets, or that the province has the worst child-poverty rate in the country, as the council reported earlier this year.

"The Campbell government has taken a very specific policy direction in reducing incomes to the most vulnerable members of British Columbia communities."

Few provinces fare well in the council's report, which tracks welfare incomes over two decades for four categories of people: Single parents with one child, couples with two children, disabled people, and single employable people.

The report singles out B.C., Ontario, and the western provinces because they "hold the dubious distinction of recording the lowest welfare incomes between 2000 and 2005 for all four household types."

B.C.'s welfare incomes in three of the four categories were lower in 2005 than at any point in the past 20 years, the study shows. Only people with disabilities, who received an extra $70 a month last year, saw their welfare income improve slightly from a record low in 2004.

In the past six years alone, B.C. couples with two children have seen their annual welfare income drop by about $2,000 or 10 per cent to $18,466, the report says.

The income for single employable people, meanwhile, has dropped $1,400 or 18 per cent over the same time period to $6,456 year -- $14,000 below the poverty line.