TORONTO, ON – Ontario Disability Support Program (ODSP) recipients will see a slight increase to their July social assistance cheques due to an inflation-related increase to basic needs and maximum shelter allowances. The Income Security Advocacy Centre (ISAC) releases an annual update tracking the changes in social assistance rates. As of July 2023, a single person receiving ODSP will receive $1,308 monthly to cover housing costs and the basic necessities of life.
“Information about changes to government social assistance policies is in high demand,” said Melinda Ferlisi, Executive Director of ISAC. “Our Social Assistance rates sheet is a tool used by regular people, academics, government workers, and members of the media to understand how the government is, or isn’t, supporting some of the most vulnerable people in Ontario.”
Unfortunately, the numbers in one section of the chart have stayed the same for the last five years. People receiving Ontario Works (OW) will not see any increase to their rates, despite a province-wide affordable housing crisis and the ongoing effects of inflation which has heavily impacted food prices.
“Without liveable rates, people who are struggling to find and keep work are not going to make it,” said Claudia Calabro, community organizer at ISAC. “They are being pushed further and further away from achieving healthy, sustainable lives by being forced to live on obscenely low social assistance rates.”
The inflation-related increase to ODSP fulfills a recent government promise to index ODSP rates to the rate of inflation, but critics have noted that this still leaves ODSP recipients in deep poverty and does nothing to support OW recipients who are experiencing the province-wide housing affordability and cost of living crises. The refusal to increase OW rates also comes at a time when foodbank use across the province has sky-rocketed, with long lines to access foodbank services in big and medium-sized cities regularly snaking around several city blocks.
“Ensuring that all people in Ontario on social assistance have adequate incomes should be this government’s top priority, regardless of whether recipients are individuals or single parents, whether they can work or not, whether they’re having trouble overcoming systemic barriers or have hit a temporary snag and need support,” said Calabro. “The current response is shameful.”
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For more information, contact:
Claudia Calabro, Communications Specialist / Organizer, ISAC
claudia.calabro@isac.clcj.ca // cell: 437-245-9457