Social Assistance Statistical Report: 2007
Posted online July 15, 2010

Prepared by:
Federal-Provincial-Territorial Directors of Income Support

"In recognition of the growing public demand for comprehensive information on provincial and territorial social assistance programs and caseloads, the Social Assistance Statistical Report: 2007 is the fourth annual joint publication by federal, provincial and territorial governments. The report provides a general overview of social assistance in Canada, as well as a description of income support-related/social assistance programs in each jurisdiction. This report does not include social assistance rates as this information is currently available to the public on most provincial and territorial government Web sites."
(Excerpt from Chapter 1 - Summary)

NOTE: Chapter Two of the report is a six-page descriptive overview of social assistance in Canada in 2006-2007, comprising a (very) brief history of federal social assistance since 1966 and general information about welfare eligibility and benefits. Other chapters of the report provide, for each province and territory, information on eligibility (including asset and income exemption levels) and benefits, as well as an impressive number of statistical tables, graphs and charts providing numbers of cases and beneficiaries (time series statistics going back as far as the mid-1990s, depending on the jurisdiction), profile information (age/education/sex of household head, cases by reason for assistance) and even (for most jurisdictions) the percentage of households reporting income.

Complete report
in one PDF file - (751K, 129 pages)

Links to the three earlier editions of this report:
* Social Assistance Statistical Report: 2006
* Social Assistance Statistical Report: 2005
* Social Assistance Statistical Report: 2004

Source:
Social Policy
[ Human Resources and Skills Development Canada ]

< Begin social researcher's lament. >

It's great to see the 2007 edition of this report online, but the numbers in this report *are* over three years old --- none of the welfare ripple effects of the economic disaster of 2008 and 2009 are evident in the March 2007 stats in this report. This really isn't timely enough to help in the policy formulation process, nor is it timely enough to ensure accountability with respect to spending by federal, provincial and territorial governments on Canada's social assistance programs.

So why are timely welfare statistics important?
To tell, among other things, how many new welfare cases are "EI exhaustees" (households whose Employment Insurance benefit period has expired) and how many are there because they didn't qualify for EI in the first place. Welfare reporting must be comprehensive AND reasonably current.
Perhaps it's time to farm out the production of welfare statistics and related information to an objective, non-politicized third party...

< /End social researcher's lament. >

Over 40 pages of information on Canadian social assistance programs as they operated in 1994. Much of the information in this document is still as relevant today as it was back then - eligibility, benefits, administrative rules, and more. Includes information about cost-sharing of welfare costs under the Canada Assistance Plan. Question-and-answer format for quick reference. This work was part of a larger study of social assistance in 24 countries released by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) early in 1996. I was the author of this report, with a lot of input from a number of colleagues in the Department at the time. This is a snapshot of what welfare was like in Canada before the Canada Health and Social Transfer in 1996...
[ More info about the OECD study of welfare in 24 countries - includes a country report on Canada - *also* recommended reading! ]

This is a goldmine of statistical information (beneficiary data and expenditure data) on current and defunct Canadian federal social programs, and even some on provincial/territorial programs.

This report offers 25 years of longitudinal data on costs and numbers of beneficiaries for most programs - over 100 tables - covering a large number of programs --- here's a partial list:
- Child Tax Benefit, Family Allowances, the Child Tax Credit, Old Age Security/Guaranteed Income Supplement/Spouse's Allowance ("The Allowance"), Federal Training and Employment Programs, Federal Goods and Services Tax Credit, the Canada/Quebec Pension Plans, War Veterans' and Civilian War Allowances, Veterans' and Civilians' Disability Pensions, Unemployment/Employment Insurance, the Canada Assistance Plan, Workers' Compensation, Youth Allowances, Social Assistance and Social Services for Registered Indians --- and more...

Source:
Social Policy
[ Human Resources and Skills Development Canada ]

Preface (short blurb only)

List of Tables
[Read the Introductory notes at the top of the page and in Appendix A of this report for all methodological notes.]
"...Tables in this report have been organized into two parts. Part I presents three Overview Tables which illustrate the trends in social security expenditures by all levels of government for Canada. Part II comprises Component Tables which provide data on beneficiaries and expenditures for individual programs."

A number of tables were removed from this edition of the Social Security Statistics report, including some Workers' Compensation tables and tables with info on Blind Persons' Allowances, Disabled Persons' Allowances and Unemployed Assistance Total Federal-Provincial Cost-Shared Payments.
Check older editions of this report for those data.

Scroll down the list of tables to find a particular program, then click on its name to access the HTML version of the table (the HTML page includes links to the PDF and Excel versions of the table).

A few sample tables:

Table 360 - Total Federal-Provincial Cost-Shared Program Expenditures, 1978-79 to 2002-03
NOTE: Table 360 traces the evolution/devolution of transfers under the Canada Assistance Plan (in dollars) from 1976 to 1999. No new claims were paid out under CAP after the Canada Health and Social Transfer came into effect in April 1996; amounts shown as CAP expenditures for the fiscal years after 1995-96 are final settlements with each jurisdiction for all outstanding commitments by the federal government.

Table 361: Canada Assistance Plan (CAP) - Number of Beneficiaries of General Assistance (including dependants), as of March 31, 1979 to 1996
- This is a key table for research on welfare programs - welfare dependency statistics by jurisdiction over the years. These are the final, definitive numbers.

Table 362 : Total Federal-Provincial Cost-Shared Expenditures for General Assistance, by Province/Territory, 1978-79 to 1995-96
- this table should be of special interest for welfare historians and number-crunchers - it shows exactly when Canadian government spending on welfare (by the federal and provincial/territorial governments) started looking a little fuzzier. When the feds imposed the cap on CAP (max. 5% annual increase in total CAP payments) in Ontario, Alberta and BC in the early 1990s, those three provinces stopped reporting how much of their CAP dollars were going to welfare (vs. other CAP components covered under the same federal contribution). Table 362 shows that as of 1991-92, the federal contribution to those three provinces for General Assistance appears as "n/a" - so it's been impossible to produce a national figure since then. Unless, of course, one wanders over into the minefield of provincial government welfare statistics, where welfare programs (and related expenditures) have undergone a major transformation. If you *do* want to check out welfare stats for each Canadian jurisdiction, your best starting point is the Key Welfare Links Page of this website - http://www.canadiansocialresearch.net/welfare.htm - which includes links to welfare stats in each province and territory where they're available.

Table 434
Total Federal Payments under CAP, 1978-79 to 1999-2000
[The note under table 360 also applies to this table. ]

Table 435
Number of Beneficiaries (including dependants) of Provincial and Municipal Social Assistance, as of March 31, 1997 to 2003

Table 438
Provincial and Municipal Social Assistance Program Expenditures, 1980-81 to 2002-03

Table 526
Provincial and Territorial Children's Benefits and Earned Income Supplements, Expenditures for Fiscal years 1978-79 to 2002-03