New data shows more single people are excluded from Ontario’s post-pandemic economy
Growing homelessness including encampments across Ontario, and record levels of visits to food banks, are two visible signs of further social and financial marginalization of Ontarians who cannot find a foothold in the post-pandemic employment and housing markets.
This report puts in context Ontario’s social assistance system accessed by a growing number of people who have no other choice, despite its inadequacies as a social safety net. This situation calls for immediate attention, and the Social Planning and Research Council of Hamilton joins organizations across Ontario to advocate to residents, policymakers, and politicians to take action to reverse these trends. Maytree’s recommendations from their Welfare in Canada report provide a blueprint for actions that are needed in the short term. Complete reform of social assistance into a basic income model must also be considered, starting with an immediate doubling of social assistance rates to make a dent in the food insecurity, mental health and homelessness crises facing Ontario.
In the words of Ron Anicich, co-chair of the OSDP Action Coalition, social assistance is about what kind of society Ontario is, and wants to be:
This is about the kind of society we want to build. Do we want an Ontario where the most vulnerable among us are left behind? Or do we want a province that embodies compassion, fairness, and opportunity for everyone?
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Social assistance rates in Ontario are much, much lower than poverty lines
Ontario’s monthly social assistance rates, illustrated in Chart 1, are completely inadequate to cover even the basic necessities of life, and exclude any expenses for participating in society, such as Internet access, going out with friends, or travelling to community events or to visit family. Food banks across Ontario serve high numbers of social assistance recipients because there is no way a person can have a budget that allows them to buy food that provides enough nutrition to survive on social assistance alone without additional help.
Chart 1 shows that Ontario’s social assistance rates are well below any measure of decency.
- Personal Needs Allowance (PNA) is the amount for persons who live in residential care facilities and other care homes. While their housing and meals are provided by the home, their PNA of $149 a month has to cover all other expenses, including clothing and personal items, travel, social outings, meals away from home, etc. This amount has not changed since 2019.
- Ontario Works (OW) is the social assistance program for persons without a disability who cannot find work and do not have family support to assist them financially. A single person on OW only gets $733 a month to cover all their expenses, including housing, food, clothing, transit, and other basic necessities of life to be able to live and be stable enough to be available on the job market and find work. This amount has not changed since 2018.
- Ontario Disability Support Program (ODSP) is the social assistance program for persons with disabilities who cannot work or can only work with reduced hours. A single person with a disability only gets $1,368 that has to cover all their expenses, including housing, food, clothing, transit, and other basic necessities of life, as well as all the additional costs of living with a disability, including over the counter medications, repairs on needed equipment, extra costs for food, and adaptive clothing, for instance. After years of no increases, ODSP rates have been set to rise with inflation since 2022. The Ontario government has not explained why other social assistance levels are not indexed to inflation as ODSP rates are now.
Chart 1 also contrasts social assistance rates with three measures of poverty:
- Low Income Measure (LIM) before tax, which is set at half of Canada’s before-tax median income. This is a type of inequality measure, a level of income below which individuals are largely excluded from everyday social life due to not being able to afford items needed to participate in society.
- Market Basket Measure (MBM), which is Canada’s official poverty line set by the federal government.
- Market Basket Measure – Deep Poverty (MBM-DP), which is set at 70% of the MBM, below which is at a deep level of poverty that increases everyday hardships tremendously.
Social assistance rates in Ontario are well below these measures of poverty, which makes daily life a struggle to survive, and has significant negative impacts on physical and mental health. These low social assistance rates are contributing to increasing homelessness among Ontarians, as living in a shelter, couch surfing, or an encampment is the only way to make ends meet. Climbing out of deep poverty adds even more challenges to accessing the job market.
Ontario Works rates are the lowest they have ever been
The amount of social assistance provided to a single person in Ontario has declined in value almost every year since data is available (1986), as shown in Chart 2. This chart shows the history of social assistance rates in today’s dollars (2024). The largest reduction in Ontario’s social assistance rates was the draconian cut by Mike Harris’s Progressive Conservative government, and the introduction of Ontario Works and Ontario Disability Support Program which replaced previous social assistance programs in 1997. In almost all other years, the levels have been frozen or only increased by a small amount lower than the rate of inflation. When rates do not keep up with inflation, then that means the paltry standard of living of social assistance recipients cannot keep up with increasing costs, as their purchasing power is further reduced.
Ontario Works rates for a single individual are now at their lowest point ever, providing just $733 per month. While the cost of living has increased sharply, Ontario Works rate increases have been frozen. Even compared to the draconian cuts to social assistance in 1995, this means $733 is now worth $207 less than it was then, making it impossible for Ontario Works recipients to afford rent, groceries or personal hygiene products, among the basic items for survival.
In 2022, the Ontario government finally indexed the rates of the Ontario Disability Support Program to the rate of inflation. But that only means that they will not drop further in the value of what they can buy. It does not make up for the decades of declines in social assistance rates. And the government has never explained why other social assistance programs, like Ontario Works and the Personal Needs Allowance, are still frozen and not indexed to inflation.
Advocates are calling for the immediate doubling of social assistance rates, to make a needed reversal to the crisis levels of social assistance, which in turn exacerbate the housing crisis, the mental health crisis, and the food insecurity crisis we are experiencing in Ontario.
Basic needs and shelter amounts for Ontario works leave recipients desperate and indebted
The social assistance total amounts shown in previous charts are only the maximum someone can receive. If a person lives in subsidized housing or shelter, they will only receive the “basic needs” amount, and not the maximum “shelter amount” that someone living in market rent housing will be eligible for.
Charts 3 and 4 show the basic needs amount and maximum shelter amounts for Ontario Works and Ontario Disability Support Program compared to the true costs of living in Hamilton.
The desperation created by such low basic needs amounts and shelter amounts for Ontario Works recipients means many are forced to indebt themselves by paying rent on a credit card, or getting an informal loan from a friend or family member. Others may resort to panhandling, or doing sexwork or other informal labour to get the cash they need to pay the rent. Some are working in the formal labour market, but losing half their OW benefits after the first $200 they make per month.
The province has repeatedly tried to justify these paltry rates by saying Ontario Works is “short term support only”, which cruelly overlooks that the only way to survive even in the short term on Ontario Works is to use foodbanks, take out loans/credit card debt, and/or live in a shelter. This “short term support” leaves people in much worse off situation than before accessing social assistance, and makes climbing out of poverty and leaving social assistance so much harder due to accumulated debt.
Even ODSP’s higher basic needs amount is essentially a mirage, because anyone paying market rent has to use most of their basic needs amount to supplement their shelter amount to pay for rent and utilities.
The cost of this desperation impacts individuals and society, including taxpayers ultimately, since many social assistance recipients end up in the emergency shelter system, which costs much more per person than affordable housing.
Hamilton social assistance levels similar to provincial averages
Social assistance data by Census Metropolitan Area (CMA) presented in Chart 5 shows the Hamilton CMA’s rates of ODSP and OW caseloads as a percentage of the population aged 15-64 (this is the “working age population” – and persons aged 65 are no longer eligible for OW or ODSP, they can access instead federal senior income security programs such as Old Age Security (OAS) and the Guaranteed Income Supplement), compared to other CMAs in Southern Ontario, and the provincial average.
About 4% of the Hamilton CMA’s working age population accessed Ontario Disability Support programs in 2024, slightly higher than the provincial average of 3.5%, and about mid-range compared to other Southern Ontario CMAs. Around 2.2% of the Hamilton CMA’s working age population accessed Ontario Works in 2024, lower than the provincial average of 2.5%, and about mid-range compared to other Southern Ontario CMAs.
The Hamilton CMA includes the cities of Hamilton, Burlington and Grimsby. This data is only available at the larger CMA level. Because the city of Hamilton has population, more social and affordable housing units, more supportive housing, and more shelters than Burlington or Grimsby, the vast majority of social assistance recipients in the Hamilton CMA live in the city of Hamilton, and much smaller numbers live in Burlington or Grimsby. The City of Hamilton’s demographic dashboard reports that 3.3% of city residents were Ontario Works recipients in October 2023.
In 2024, thousands more Ontarians are in such desperate economic straits that they have to resort to Ontario Works support
Since the end of the pandemic, there has been an increase in the number of Ontario Works recipients, a reflection of the difficulty in finding work for those who are at the margins of Ontario’s post-pandemic economy. Chart 6 shows that in the last year alone there have been an additional 52,578 Ontarians who receive Ontario Works.
ODSP has generally had a steady caseload in recent years with some declines as the aging group of recipients turn 65 and are eligible for senior supports instead of provincial social assistance. However, this trend reversed from 2023 to 2024 and ODSP’s caseload increased by over 7,000 recipients.
Single persons dominate the growth in social assistance caseloads
As Maytree’s data and reports have demonstrated, the social assistance caseload in Ontario is very diverse, in terms of ages, genders, household types, and employment participation. Single individuals are the dominant household type among both ODSP and OW caseloads, reflecting that family support is a person’s first safety net, and when that is not available, the social safety net is needed to step in.
Most concerning, single recipients have seen an abrupt and dramatic increase among Ontario Works caseloads (Chart 7). Just over 190,000 single persons were receiving Ontario Works benefits in July 2024, a net increase of 30% for that caseload type alone since July 2019, and a 43,830-person net caseload increase. Single persons on OW have the lowest benefit rates, as previous charts have illustrated, and this program of last resort does not provide the safety net that can adequately allow someone to stabilize their life enough to turn towards the job market and have a good chance of gaining employment. For too many singles on Ontario Works, shelters, couch surfing, tents, charitable meal programs and food banks are the only options accessible to them for daily survival.
Analysis of Hamilton CMA ODSP and OW data by age group, gender, and household type shows that the largest net growth between 2019 and 2024 was among Ontario Works single recipients (+17.1% net change), males (+11% net change), and persons aged 55-64 (+10.5% net change). Chart 8 shows this growth in raw numbers, with comparisons to other mid and small-size CMAs in Southern Ontario. The data show that most southern Ontario CMAs have growth in the same groups and that St-Catharines-Niagara has the largest net growth in these categories of Ontario Works recipients. It is not possible to confirm with this data, but it is very likely that a large portion of the growth in Ontario Works recipients in Niagara are Hamilton residents who have been forcibly displaced from their affordable housing units and have had to move further from Hamilton including to St-Catharines and surrounding towns to find a place to live.
A Ticket to insecurity
By its very name social assistance’s goal is assistance — a ticket to help someone gain entry or return to social and economic participation. The current system and low rates demonstrate that that goal has been abandoned, and social assistance is for far too many a ticket to insecurity. For many social assistance recipients, their security comes not from their income but from the social housing unit that they have been able access, with their rent set as a third of their meagre income. Deeply affordable rental units, such as Rent-geared-to-income (RGI) units are in decline in Ontario, yet this essential component in Ontario’s social safety net is needed more than ever given the increasing number of people relying on social assistance.
Caring about the most vulnerable in our society makes us all stronger. A robust, modernized social safety net in Ontario, with decent social assistance and a decent social housing system, is needed to show how caring Ontario can be and to make our province more prosperous. Residents, and municipal, provincial and federal governments must all take our part to stitch together a social safety net that can catch any of us when we fall.
A final word from Ron A. co-chair of the ODSP Action Coalition from his speech at a rally in October 2024 in Hamilton:
The good news is that there’s growing recognition across the province that this situation is untenable. We’re seeing broad public and political support for doubling the rates for both OW and ODSP. This isn’t just a fringe idea anymore – it is becoming mainstream as more and more Ontarians recognize the moral and practical imperative of ensuring a basic standard of living for all.
The time for half measures is over. We need immediate action to address this crisis. At least doubling the rates for OW and ODSP is not just the right thing to do. It is the smart thing to do for the future of our province.
I call on our provincial government to act now. To my fellow Ontarians, I ask you to join us in this fight. Contact your MPPs, speak out in your communities, and support organizations working on this issue. Together we can build an Ontario where no one is left behind in poverty.
Report prepared by Sara Mayo, Social Planner, Social Planning and Research Council of Hamilton
This report is published by the Social Planning and Research Council of Hamilton and funded in part by the Citizen Action Group Hamilton, the United Way Halton Hamilton and the City of Hamilton Enrichment Fund. SPRC Hamilton takes full responsibility for the views stated and presentation and interpretation of the data, including any errors.
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