4 Social Policy Topic Area – Income / Economic Security
RESOURCES
Social Assistance Summaries, 2022
The Social Assistance Summaries series tracks the number of recipients of social assistance (welfare payments) in each province and territory. It was established by the Caledon Institute of Social Policy to maintain data previously published by the federal government as the Social Assistance Statistical Report. The data is provided by provincial and territorial government officials. (April 2023).
For the total incomes available to those relying on social assistance, visit the Welfare in Canada report.
Interpreting the data: Key takeaways from Welfare in Canada, 2021
By Jennefer Laidley and Mohy Tabbara, Published on 15 Dec. 2022
2022 Poverty Progress Profiles
Poverty Trends 2023: Reimagining a Rights-Based Social Safety Net
Produced by Citizens for Public Justice (downloadable report at link above)
Annual State of the Inner City Reports at CCPA
Video introducing the Poor Laws by History Hub, University of London
Videos on hostile architecture and criminalization of homelessness
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xe4cRA3OrEw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7YaJ5cu20jM
On the surveillance of social assistance in Ontario and single mothers (but much applicable across Canada):
Ineligible: Single Mothers Under Welfare Surveillance – Krys Maki (2021)
Poverty as a Human Rights Violation
Frankel, S. (2022). Poverty as a human rights violation. In John Packer (Ed.). Canadian yearbook on human rights (2019-2021). Vol. 111, pp. 118-126 [PDF pp. 128-136].
Breakfast of champions: CEO pay in 2021 hits new all-time high
David Macdonald, Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, January 2023
Survival of the Richest: How we must tax the super-rich now to fight inequality
This study is global in scope. The Executive Summary is found on pp. 7 – 14.
Oxfam Great Britain briefing paper – January 2023
We are living through an unprecedented moment of multiple crises. Tens of millions more people are facing hunger. Hundreds of millions more face impossible rises in the cost of basic goods or heating their homes. Poverty has increased for the first time in 25 years. At the same time, these multiple crises all have winners. The very richest have become dramatically richer and corporate profits have hit record highs, driving an explosion of inequality. This report focuses on how taxing the rich is vital to addressing this unprecedented polycrisis and skyrocketing inequality. The report explores how, in recent history, taxation of the richest was far higher; how talk of taxing the rich and making billionaires pay their fair share is hugely popular; and how taxing the rich claws back elite power and reduces not just economic inequality, but racial, gender and colonial inequalities, too. The report lays out how much tax the richest should pay, and the practical, tried and tested ways in which governments can raise such taxation. It shows us how taxing the rich can set us clearly on a path to a more equal, sustainable world free from poverty. (from p. 2)
What is (Universal) Basic Income?
Note: This entry is available as a digital resource through the Univ. of Manitoba Libraries. You can access it by logging in with your student ID. Make sure to search this exact title: Oxford Bibliographies: Social Work
FRIBIS YouTube Playlists
The Freiburg Institute for Basic Income Studies (Germany) offers a wide range of video presentations on academic work on Basic Income from around the world.
The Green or Ecological Case for UBI
This video (see link below) maps out an ecological argument for UBI. This rationale is distinct from, but related to, other arguments in favour of UBI to do with reducing poverty, increasing economic and social equality, supporting all forms of (paid and unpaid) work, and enhancing human freedom.
This green argument for UBI is discussed in the first 11 minutes of the video.
AUDIO CLIP: Child and Family Poverty Rates in Ontario went down during the Pandemic (9 minutes)
Report co-author, and director of the CCPA Ontario office Randy Robinson says the CCPA Ontario’s new report about child and family poverty shows that child and family poverty rates in Ontario went down during the pandemic thanks to federal programs like CERB. And that economic conditions have worsened for many Ontario families since those supports were removed.
PODCAST: How linking poverty and wealth will break the inequality cycle
[from Policy Press website:] Stewart Lansley, author of The Richer, The Poorer, discusses why we need to talk about the links between poverty and wealth, the challenges of measuring poverty and the impact of living in an unequal society.
PODCAST: What next for the welfare state?
[from Policy Press website:] Jess Miles speaks with Chris Pierson, author of The Next Welfare State?, about current policy, the mistakes of the past, and ways in which the welfare state should be transformed in order to ensure collective wellbeing.
Feature Article on Poverty in the United States:
Why Poverty Persists in America – by Matthew Desmond
Matthew Desmond is a professor of sociology at Princeton University and a contributing writer for the New York Times Magazine. This article is adapted form his latest book Poverty, by America published by Crown.