My purpose in writing this blog is to make it very easy for the uninitiated reader to understand what is going on with Ontario Works in Toronto and what could be done.
The narrative
First of all, the simplest definition of workforce development in this context is that employers looking for workers represent perfection. That is, they have the jobs and the workforce development goal in Toronto and across Ontario is to supply employers with Ontario Works recipients to do those jobs.
It doesn’t matter how much the jobs pay, the number of hours that employers provide, where they are located, the benefits and supports they may provide or whether the worker is actually self-employed as opposed to being an employee. Whatever the employer legally offers is just fine. Employers represent the far side of the Grand Canyon. Any job is a good job.
The purpose of Ontario Works in the context of workforce development is for recipients to get off welfare and no longer collect a cent and to no longer receive the other benefits that are provided. The idea that a program objective is to leave the program is a feature that is unique to Ontario Works in its role as an income security program.
But there are earnings incentives in the Ontario Works benefit structure designed to reduce one’s allowance while increasing overall income. Recipients can do this by taking on work that would be insufficient to remove them from benefits entirely. For every dollar they earn after $200 a month, they keep half and the program keeps half.
A single person receiving Ontario Works of $733 a month can earn $1,660 a month (about 62% of full time minimum wages) while continuing to receive an allowance of about $3.00 a month and the following in-kind benefits
- Prescription drugs under the Ontario Drug Benefit (ODB) plan
- Dental benefits as prescribed
- Diabetic supplies
- The client contribution under the Assistive Devices Program (ADP)
- Medical transportation
- Batteries and repairs for mobility devices
- Eye exams
- Dog guides
- Employment start-up; and
- Up front childcare
However, there appears to be no place within workforce development objectives to gradually work more and more hours to reduce the amount of Ontario Works one might receive while retaining a small amount of income and important benefits that most low wage employers do not provide.
Premier Ford has said that it bothers him that Ontario is awash in jobs and that hundreds of thousands of non-disabled recipients are collecting Ontario Works benefits. It is reasonable to believe that the Premier agrees with the workforce development approach of removing people entirely from Ontario Works.
Recently, a new private sector employment and social services delivery agent has been chosen to deliver workforce development opportunities to Ontario Work recipients in Toronto. Their name is WCG .
WCG gets paid by successfully supplying Ontario Works recipients to employers. Toronto Employment and Social Services will manage residual non-employment services to Ontario Works recipients who cannot be successfully integrated into employment through workforce development approaches.
A counter narrative
Ontario Works is designed to be a program that rewards individual effort. It regards poverty as a form of dependence that is seen as a personal deficit that one must overcome on one’s own. Getting off assistance is a not a group effort.
The distance between living on Ontario Works and a paid job resulting in self-sufficiency is like a chasm. It is like the Grand Canyon for the many who do not have the skills or resources to make the leap to full time work.
Although one of the goals of workforce development could be to work with employers to close the gap between the two sides of the Grand Canyon, the general approach taken by Ontario is for the recipient to make the leap and for employers to stay where they are.
Employers see the results of this approach on a daily basis. Candidates don’t show up for work on the first day and they often quit after working for a couple of weeks. For employers, this is wicked expensive.
To an employer, they may view such candidates as being work shy or not wishing to work in the first place. They don’t understand that for the recipient, their allowance was either cut off completely or that a catastrophic loss of a meagre income was imminent. They don’t understand that the person had to quit to get back on assistance. They don’t understand that if the person was in subsidized housing, their rent was going to shoot up.
To recipients, they realized that they either just jumped off a cliff or were about to jump. They realized while falling that there was no chance of getting to the other side. They had either lost their last dollar of benefits if they left Ontario Works along with all the other benefits, or were about to lose them.
It is possible for some recipients to make the leap. We know that. If they have family and resources and skills, some money saved, and good work experience, they can survive. But most recipients do not have this.
Therefore a better approach may be to work with employers to provide significant part time work that would allow recipients to stay on Ontario Works, retain a few dollars and all the benefits noted above. That way, they could walk up to the edge of the Grand Canyon but not make the leap. Working just back from the edge, they could test out the work while the employer could see if the candidate may be suitable. At a later point, the leap to the other side might be much more realistic. Both sides would know the score.
Right now, neither do.
For years now, I have worked with Ontario Works recipients and while encouraging some to make the leap, I tell them how much they can earn part time before they will lose their benefits and what those benefits are.
Few know how much they can earn before being cut off and hardly any know the full range of benefits they will be giving up. Almost no one knows if their rent will go up nor that taking a chance is heavily penalized.
But they do find out and that’s why they don’t show up to work or leave quickly.
In realistic workforce development, half way measures can work.
Let’s consider this one.