[homeles_ot-l] Fwd: {ODSPAction} Toronto Star article - Misstep on Child Benefit

[Terrie]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Naomi Berlyne <naomibe at houselink.on.ca>
Date: Mon, May 5, 2008 at 12:00 PM
Subject: {ODSPAction} Toronto Star article - Misstep on Child Benefit
To: odspaction at googlegroups.com, odspaction-announce at googlegroups.com


  <http://www.thestar.com/default>

*Misstep on child benefit** **TheStar.com - comment - Misstep on child
benefit*

May 05, 2008

In last year's budget, the Ontario government promised "a transformative era
in social policy" by fundamentally changing how benefits are paid to
children in low-income families.

The centrepiece of this new approach was the Ontario Child Benefit, under
which some 1.3 million children in low income families would be helped
whether their parents were working or on social assistance.

This July the benefit rises to $600 annually, paid in $50 monthly
installments. But the benefit will not be applied equally. That is because
the government will claw back part of the benefit for the 200,000 kids whose
families are on social assistance by reducing the monthly welfare cheques to
their parents.

Thus, despite the government's assurances to the contrary, no family on
social assistance will net the full $50 a month from the child benefit this
year. Many will get as little as $24 a month.

As well, families on social assistance will no longer be getting a $134 per
child back-to-school allowance at the end of August and a $111 per child
winter clothing allowance in November. That money has also been restructured
and spread out over the whole year, so families get an extra $15 to $20 a
month. They are expected to put that money aside to pay for these big
expenses later. But social assistance rates are already so low that families
have no room to save.

Moving child benefits out of the basic welfare program is in principle a
good step that recognizes society's responsibility to help low-income
families no matter the source of their income.

But denying families on social assistance the full benefit that their
"working poor" counterparts receive is unfair to the kids. And expecting
their parents to be able to save is unrealistic.

The Liberal government at Queen's Park is putting together a comprehensive
poverty reduction strategy for the province. A good place to start would be
rethinking these measures.





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-- 
Terrie ( mocharebyl at gmail.com )
"If you see an injustice being committed, you aren't an observer, you are a
participant." June Callwood
Prejudice is a burden that confuses the past, threatens the future and
renders the present inaccessible. Maya Angelou
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