Pilot project to introduce a basic income in Ontario gets strong public support
Three-year proposal is set to launch this spring and will give participants a guaranteed salary.

thestar.com
By LAURIE MONSEBRAATEN
March 16, 2017

A proposed provincial pilot project to give some people struggling on poverty-level welfare payments and low-wage jobs a basic income with no strings attached, received a thumbs-up during recent online and public consultations.

Ontarians are also keen to know whether this type of support would impact health, housing, food and work habits, according to a report summarizing public feedback on the initiative.

“There was strong agreement that the basic income amount should be set at a level that will lift recipients out of poverty,” says the report, released Thursday.

The three-year pilot project, announced in the 2016 budget, is expected to be launched this spring.

A provincial discussion paper last fall by longtime guaranteed annual income supporter Hugh Segal, suggested a minimum monthly payment of $1,320 for a single person, or about 75 per cent of the province’s low-income measure. People with disabilities would receive an additional $500 a month.

The low-income measure is an income-based poverty measurement equal to half the median household income.

Thursday’s report updates Segal’s suggested basic income amount for a single person to $1,689 a month to reflect 2016 household incomes.

More than 35,000 Ontarians weighed in on the proposed experiment, including almost 33,000 people who answered an online survey and about 1,200 individuals who attended one of 14 public meetings between November and January.

They agreed participation should be voluntary, no participant should be worse off and those on welfare or disability benefits should be able to keep their current dental, health and medical benefits. Participants should also have access to financial planning, internet services, employment counselling, life skills training and other support to help them escape poverty.

Ontarians also shared their views on which communities to include in the pilot and how a basic income should be delivered.

But anti-poverty activists who attended most of the public consultations say welfare rates should be increased immediately to the proposed basic income amount.

A single person without a disability currently receives just $708 a month on welfare, or 42 per cent of the province’s low-income measure which is equal to half of the median household income in Ontario, adjusted for size.

“This is just another merry-go-round,” said Toronto activist Pauline Bryant, 54, who struggles to survive on $876 a month in welfare and special diet benefits.

“We can’t wait another four or five years for them to complete this experiment. We are falling to the curb now,” she said.

Bryant’s monthly rent of $675 for a room with a bathroom near Spadina Ave. and Dupont St. leaves her little for food and other necessities, she said.

If welfare rates were raised to the basic income amount, she says she would be able to afford a new winter coat and boots or a steak and pork chops.

“The closest I get to a slab of meat is when I go to the deli for cold cuts,” she said.

Respondents to the survey and public consultations generally agreed the pilot should be limited to adults ages 18 to 65 and not seniors or children who already receive monthly income-tested benefits.

Segal suggested the basic income should not exceed 75 per cent of the low-income measure to encourage people to make up the difference through work. But about half of respondents recommended a higher payment that would bring participants to the poverty line so that extra work would make a real difference.

Most respondents agreed the pilot should run in both rural and urban communities with varying socio-economic profiles. Segal suggested three sites and one First Nations community.

Segal recommended a negative income tax mode of delivery where those whose incomes fall below a certain level would receive a non-taxable top-up. However, many respondents felt the money should go to everyone as a universal payment and be taxed back from those with middle to upper incomes.

Respondents were divided on whether the money should be based on individual or household income.

On Thursday, Segal said the public input “speaks eloquently to Ontarians’ genuine desire to probe change and improvement in welfare and disability support.”

“If and when Ontario proceeds with a pilot project. . . it could well be the beginning of a seminal change in how modern societies inclusively and economically reduce the negative and broad impact of poverty,” he said in an email.

The project is being jointly stick-handled by Social Services Minister Helena Jaczek and Chris Ballard, minister responsible for the government’s poverty reduction efforts, who said they are “thrilled” by the level of interest. The number of online surveys completed was one of the largest responses the government has received on any consultation, they added.

But Mike Balkwill of the Raise the Rates Coalition, said the report fails to reflect his group’s demand to boost welfare rates now.

“The report does not reflect the overwhelming support expressed at the consultations for an immediate increase in social assistance for all recipients to the levels recommended by Segal,” he said. “It is dismissive to say that the energy we brought was ‘remarkable’ and yet ignore the substance of the overwhelming support for an immediate increase.”

The idea of a basic or guaranteed income, first tested in the 1960s and 70s in the U.S. and Manitoba, is garnering worldwide attention again amid concerns about growing inequality and the loss of employment to automation. Finland launched a guaranteed income pilot in January this year, the Netherlands and Kenya are developing projects while a California company is planning a five-year pilot.

But in a referendum last summer, Switzerland rejected a universal basic income of about $3,300 a month out of fears it would bankrupt the country and encourage idleness.