Poverty Awareness in York Region

This article appeared in the Toronto Star - relates to the NCBS clawback.

Children Bear Scars of Clawback

Nov. 2, 2006.

Colin Hughes and Melanie Digman

MPPs wore purple ribbons in the Ontario Legislature on Oct. 2 to recognize Child Abuse and Neglect Prevention Month.

A pressing question was asked about child poverty "a major social risk factor in child-protection cases" and the province's practice of clawing back federal child-income benefits.

The federal government provides a National Child Benefit Supplement (NCBS) to low-income families to reduce child poverty. The province of Ontario deducts, or claws back, up to $1,463 a year of the NCBS from every child on social assistance.

Premier Dalton McGuinty promised to end the clawback of the NCBS in 2003. So his government was asked: When is it going to honour its promise?

Because of the NCBS clawback, families with children on social assistance are as poor as ever. This is of great concern in child welfare because poverty debilitates families. Consider these typical case scenarios:

A single parent's children go to school regularly with little to eat, holes in their shoes, and ripped and tattered clothes. Mom (or Dad) is quite isolated, relies on social assistance, much of which goes for rent, and relies on food banks.

A landlord calls the police about a mother and children screaming in their basement apartment. Father, who has addictions, is charged with assault. Mother leaves with her children to a shelter. She qualifies for welfare but, unable to find affordable housing, returns to an abusive relationship.

Grandparents consider taking in a grandchild whose parents cannot provide care. Social assistance provides $221 a month to look after a child in financial need. But $122 a month in federal child benefits is deducted. The grandparents have small pensions and wonder how they can afford to help.

A decade of inflation and social assistance cuts has deepened poverty and sapped the purchasing power of benefits by about 40 per cent. At the same time, poverty among families on social assistance has been established as one of a number of contributing factors, independent of changes to child welfare policy, to increased referrals and admissions to Children's Aid Societies.

A University of Western Ontario study of London-area child protection cases found that families on social assistance are now having much greater trouble coping. Between 1995 (when welfare rates were cut dramatically) and 2001, the rate of children in the London area being admitted into Children's Aid Society care among families relying on social assistance almost doubled. In addition, the proportion of cases of child neglect where mothers were relying social assistance mushroomed to 86 per cent of cases.

Why deduct federal child income benefits targeted to poor children from families who rely on social assistance?

Apparently it is to lower a "welfare wall," the "wall" arising when social assistance benefits are marginally better than low-paid employment. Notably, single able-bodied adults are better off if employed full-time than on $536 a month in social assistance.

In reality, the "wall" is about children and the real additional costs and responsibilities of their daily care. Using child benefits to reduce welfare leaves unemployed parents and their children no better off and at a standard of living that is too low. Do we really want to reduce a "welfare wall" so low-paid work appears more attractive and raise a "child welfare wall" within which children are at a higher degree of risk? What's on the

other side of the "wall" for children? Does employment guarantee children escape poverty? No.

As Campaign 2000 To End Child Poverty reports,

since 1995, the proportion of children living in poverty who have a parent working full-time has doubled to 33 per cent. Indeed, many families living in poverty cycle between welfare and precarious low-paying jobs.

Poverty is the problem. We must reduce poverty overall so parents can raise children in decent and dignified living conditions, and so children get a good start in life, whether their parents are employed or unemployed. Investing in the next generation is important.

The experiences children have in their formative years have lifelong consequences. Society benefits socially and economically when families raise healthy children.

Our social policies must respond to the presence of children by investing in them, not by neglecting them.

McGuinty should act on promises to end the NCBS clawback and invest in more child care and affordable housing. That would lay the foundation for developing a multi-year, made-in-Ontario poverty reduction strategy, which could include a new Ontario Child Benefit, to ensure that low-income parents are better off whether they are in the workforce or on social assistance.

Ontario's children deserve no less.