For social assistance to work, we need data, not assumptions

In times of economic turbulence and high inflation, people on social assistance will be among the hardest hit groups in our communities. Government responses should prioritize protecting this group from descending further into poverty.

To be effective, we need reliable baseline and disaggregated data that helps us understand who is in need and whether social assistance programs work for recipients.  

Maytree’s annual Social Assistance Summaries report does some of this work by looking at social assistance caseloads across Canada. As the author of the 2024 edition, two findings stood out to me:  

• Single adults are over-represented; and  
• Policies to promote work don’t seem to have affected employment rates.  

These findings should lead us to question commonly held assumptions about how best to design these programs and what impact they have on people receiving social assistance.  

First, between 2021 and 2024, single adults who do not live with a partner and do not have children made up the majority of cases in all 28 social assistance programs across Canada. Why is this?

New research suggests that the rules of social assistance are partly to blame. Social assistance programs penalize family formation through, for example, lower benefits amounts and lower income exemptions. Preventing single adults from living with their partners has many negative implications, from increasing social isolation to exacerbating shortages in affordable rental options. People who receive social assistance, like everyone else, should have the autonomy to decide how best to live their lives. The design of social assistance should not limit their choices to form couples or families.

People commonly assume that single parents and their children are the group most likely to live in poverty – for many years that was true. Income supports tailored for these families, such as the Canada Child Benefit, have changed that. Governments should similarly tailor income supports for single adults, who are now the largest demographic group facing poverty in Canada.

Second, social assistance rules intended to promote employment don’t seem to be working. For example, the theory behind earnings exemptions is that social assistance was too quick to claw back employment earnings. People who were working would lose too much of their social assistance too quickly, leaving them worse off, and this would discourage them from working. 

However, our data shows that the percentage of recipients who report employment income across the years and across jurisdictions is remarkably steady regardless of the specific earning exemptions policies in place.  

The rationale for earning exemptions rests on the assumption that the main barrier to work is personal motivation. In reality, numerous other factors are at play, such as poor health, limited job opportunities in the local area, lack of social connections, insufficient access to transportation, and a lack of basic literacy and skills training. 

Perhaps people on social assistance simply don’t have the same employment options they had in the past, in which case a more or less generous earnings exemption isn’t going to have much effect on whether or how much they work. That said, earnings exemptions are a critical tool for adequacy because they allow recipients to augment indefensibly low assistance rates. But if we want to support people to get work, we need to set aside negative stereotypes and engage in a more nuanced investigation of the relationship between social assistance and work. 

These two findings deserve attention because they show us specific areas where social assistance is not working for recipients. Surely, these are not the outcomes that social assistance programs are intended to produce.

Facing tough economic times, governments across Canada should protect the people who are most in need. To do that effectively, we need to set aside outdated assumptions about who needs social assistance, and why. Access to reliable baseline and disaggregated data is essential for understanding whether social assistance programs are doing what they are supposed to do – protect people from poverty – and where governments should direct their attention when they don’t.