By Kendall Worth!
Regular Readers may remember this article where I pointed out the $300 increase that for those who qualify, (around 60% of recipients) took effect in April ‘24. Then I repeated that info in this BLOG post, where I pointed out that another is coming in July ‘24. As pointed out in this government news release, payments are going to be indexed for everyone at 2.5%. I was recently in touch with Suzanne Lay about this increase and she did confirm this it is happening, starting in July, and, July IA payments are suppose to be retroactive back to April.
According to some anti-poverty advocates I talked to in my community, why do they perceive this as good news?
This a step in the right direction that the Nova Scotia Government is finally taking. This increase is not just any ordinary, scant rate increase. This marks the first time that any N.S. government has increased the Income Assistance rates to the Consumer Index Market Measure.
Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives that hosted an event for people on Income Assistance you can read about here, along with the Community Society to End Poverty have been advocating for this for years, and even the Benefits Reform Action Group, during their existence, advocated for this.
According to Suzanne Lay, the new Disability Supplement which started in April 2024, is being indexed.
So lets have a look at what a suspected break down of numbers could look like:
For those receiving the disability Standard House Hold Rate of $950.00, Plus the $300.00 Disability Supplement; For them this could be a $31.25 a month increase.
For those receiving the $686.00 regular Rent or own Allowance = $17.15 increase
For those receiving the $380.00 Essentials = $7.50 Increase
And all of the above are just some examples of what this increase could look like in July.
Apparently, the government has now taken care of one piece of unfinished business from the ESIA transformation, which the previous Liberal government was working on, from 2013 till 2021.
There is still a lot wrong with the system of Employment Support and Income Assistance in Nova Scotia that needs to be fixed. Speculation in my community is that this increase, for instance, is going to do next to nothing to decrease the homeless population in Nova Scotia.
Stay tuned for further posts, where I will talk about what else needs to be done to fix the system. My next post talking about this will not be till fall 2024, but I will just give a short overview of what needs to be next.
To see a couple of quick examples of required system fixes, look back at two of my past posts, here and here, where I talk about how and why the policies around Income Assistance and cohabitation need to be changed. In addition, the process of qualifying for the Special Diet Allowance needs to be addressed. For more on that see this post.
More on this to come!
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