I have written a monthly newsletter for years about social assistance caseloads. I was asked if it is face-bookable or tweet-able. With this post, I am going to try to make that possible. It is an exciting time because social assistance recipiency ( if there is such a word) is at the crossroads.
March has traditionally marked the high point in social assistance caseloads.
And following the 1980’s and 1990’s recessions, caseloads had multi-year peaks in March 1983 and March 1994 in Ontario .
Will March 2012 will be the high water mark? There are no safe bets here.
But few months have shown a retreat like April 2012 in all OW categories of singles, couples, and lone parents along with much slower growth in ODSP.
This month’s special file shows the before and after tax tally on three people ( a single, a lone parent with one child and a lone parent with two children).
They all make the same wage and their after tax incomes are all under the relevant after tax LIM’s.
The single is worse off after tax but the lone parents are much better off. Still all three are almost equidistant from the relevant LIM measure with the same before-tax wage.
Ten years ago, the lone parents would have been much further away from the relevant LIM.