Nova Scotia to increase earnings for income-assistance recipients in 2019

A top Nova Scotia bureaucrat says income-assistance recipients will be able to keep more of what they earn if they work, starting in 2019-20.

Lynn Hartwell, the deputy minister of community services, told the legislature’s public accounts committee Wednesday that planned changes would see the amount of money recipients who work are allowed to keep rise to $250 from $150.

She said the amount they can keep beyond that threshold would also increase from 30 per cent to 75 per cent for anything earned between $250 and $500.

“The average amount of wages that they earn is $500. So once this wage incentive goes in for these folks it will be several hundred dollars in their pocket immediately … so the ability to have that in the economy – it’s going to have a significant effect.”

Tweet This Click to share quote on Twitter: "The average amount of wages that they earn is $500. So once this wage incentive goes in for these folks it will be several hundred dollars in their pocket immediately … so the ability to have that in the economy - it's going to have a significant effect."

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Community and anti-poverty groups called for immediate changes to income assistance in December, including an increase to basic rates. At the time the groups said people who live in poverty have immediate needs, with the cost of such things as food and shelter continuing to increase.

But Hartwell said there can’t be an immediate change to the overall income assistance system because of the time it is taking to revamp policy and computer systems and to train employees. She said a planned five per cent increase in basic income support rates is planned for 2019-20.

“I am satisfied, sometimes reluctantly satisfied, that we can only move as fast the system will allow us to move in terms of people’s readiness for change,” she told the committee.

Tweet This Click to share quote on Twitter: "I am satisfied, sometimes reluctantly satisfied, that we can only move as fast the system will allow us to move in terms of people's readiness for change," she told the committee.

Hartwell’s answer was little comfort to Sharon Himmelman, a single mother of two and a community college student who is on income assistance.

Himmelman told reporters that she isn’t surprised to hear about the bureaucratic holdup.

“I’ve seen the red tape and I’ve seen the clawbacks and the reductions,” she said. “For most of us who have been on the system like we have been it’s all talk and no action.”

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Outside the committee hearing Hartwell also said that she couldn’t confirm when the government plans to end the clawback to income support child payments for those like Himmelman.

Last fall Premier Stephen McNeil said he believed the clawback was unfair.

“I can say we have been asked to work on some options … which we have been doing for the past few months,” said Hartwell.

Tweet This Click to share quote on Twitter: "I can say we have been asked to work on some options … which we have been doing for the past few months," said Hartwell.

“If it is possibly to be considered as part of this budget cycle, we are absolutely ready to do that.”

She confirmed that if the child income payment clawback were ended today it would cost the government $5.1 million.