Sick and tired : Compromised health of social assistance recipients and the working poor in Ontario

The Compromised Health of Social Assistance Recipients and the Working Poor in Ontario February 2009 ISBN: 978-1-894199-19-3 Produced by the Community Social Planning Council of Toronto (CSPC-T), University of Toronto’s Social Assistance in the New Economy Project (SANE) and the Wellesley Institute. [...] The Compromised Health of Social Assistance Recipients and the Working Poor in Ontario Executive Summary Falling on the heels of the release of Ontario’s land- just about the same purchasing power as their counter- mark poverty reduction strategy, Sick and Tired paints parts had in 1995. [...] Lack of access to federal Employment mend that the provincial government update labour Insurance (EI) benefits further compromises the health standards’ legislation to protect the rights of workers of the working poor by leaving them to the inadequacies engaged in other forms of precarious employment. [...] The Compromised Health of Social Assistance Recipients and the Working Poor in Ontario current government’s inflation-matching increases have The social assistance recipient (40 years) and non-poor done little to fundamentally change the position of social (41 years) groups have higher mean ages than the working assistance recipients. [...] Although considerably lower than the working Women comprise nearly two-thirds of the social assis- poor and non-poor, still more than one-quarter of the tance group compared to 55% of the working poor and social assistance group reported some household income just about half of the non-poor group.