From data to action: Policy implications of Welfare in Canada, 2024

Social assistance recipients across Canada continue to live in deep poverty, with total welfare incomes below the Official Poverty Line in every jurisdiction for most households. Unattached single adults face the greatest shortfalls.  

The policy brief highlights systemic gaps – shelter benefits that don’t cover even a room in major cities, policies that reduce support for people who are unhoused, and design flaws in the new Canada Disability Benefit – and offers concrete recommendations to address poverty and ensure the human right to an adequate standard of living. 

Key findings 

1. Shelter benefits rarely cover even a single room in major cities, fueling homelessness. 
2. Unhoused people are penalized, receiving 23 to 77 per cent less in social assistance benefits than housed recipients. 
3. Welfare incomes remain deeply inadequate across Canada, with some unattached singles living on as little as 27 per cent of the Official Poverty Line. 
4. The Canada Disability Benefit is too small, excludes too many, and is clawed back in Alberta. 
5. Canada is failing its human-rights commitment to an adequate standard of living. 

Recommendations 

Invest in the adequacy of welfare incomes  

1. Provinces and territories should invest in higher social assistance benefits and tax-delivered income supports. 
2. Governments at all levels should index all social assistance benefits and tax-delivered benefits or credits to inflation where they don’t already do so. 
3. The federal government should lead by example through new investment in targeted income supports. To address arbitrary disparities between jurisdictions, the federal government should also convene a national conversation about how to guarantee adequate welfare incomes from coast to coast to coast. 

Fix shelter benefits so they keep families housed 

4. Provide shelter benefits to people who are unhoused. 
5. Increase shelter benefits for all households so they reflect the actual cost of housing. 

Fix the Canada Disability Benefit 

6. End clawbacks of the Canada Disability Benefit. 
7. Improve the design of the benefit to address unnecessary barriers and unintended consequences. 

Related 

• Webinar: How to address the poverty of people receiving social assistance
• Full report: Welfare in Canada, 2024