Legislated Poverty? An Intersectional Policy Analysis of COVID-19 Income Support Programs in Ontario, Canada

ABSTRACT

In this paper, we use intersectionality-based policy analysis (IBPA) to examine how COVID-19 income support policies enacted in Ontario, Canada, affected people living with poverty. We find that the privileging of formal labor market attachment in eligibility requirements systemically excluded constituencies most likely to be living with poverty. More broadly, these exclusions represent a retrenchment of neoliberal logics in social policy, and the rejection of universal social welfare programs. In conclusion, we suggest that the experiences of people living with poverty during the COVID-19 pandemic further highlight the need for comprehensive social welfare programs, including a universal basic income.

KEYWORDS:

• Income support
• social assistance
• intersectionality
• poverty
• Canada
• COVID-19

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to acknowledge the valuable contributions of research assistants Kelly Hatt and Jee-Ho Paik, and community partners Services and Housing in the Province, A Way Home Canada, and the Guelph-Wellington Taskforce for Poverty Elimination. The authors also acknowledge their work and presence on Indigenous lands, with a commitment and responsibility to recognize the ongoing impacts of colonization.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/10875549.2022.2113590

Notes

1. In our analysis, we exclude public retirement programs such as the Canada Pension Plan (CPP) and Old Age Security (OAS) because our focus was on adults of what is sometimes called working age (between 18 and 65), who are usually ineligible to draw on benefits through these programs.

2. ODSP was eligible to disabled people with a qualifying disability. The qualifying criteria has been critiqued by disability activists and scholars for requiring excessive documentation and excluding many episodic disabilities. Individuals who did not qualify for ODSP were eligible only for OW. Within both programs was increasing emphasis on fast-tracking recipients to employment. For more details see: (Lightman et al., 2009 and Smith-Carrier et al., 2020).

3. In addition, participants were permitted to keep 50% of any employment income.

4. https://www.canada.ca/en/department-finance/news/2020/07/historic-covid-19-plan-provides-canadians-with-the-support-they-need-to-get-through-the-economic-crisis.html

5. https://budget.ontario.ca/2020/marchupdate/action-plan.html

6. Supporting documentation was permitted if 2019 tax filings did not accurately reflect a change in earnings in the first three months of 2020.

7. We use the term “motel-shelter” to refer to motels being used as shelters for people without permanent, stable housing, through formal and informal agreements with local service providers.

8. https://pooranlaw.com/covid-19-ontario-partially-exempts-cerb-from-social-assistance/

9. Thank you to a member of the Guelph-Wellington Taskforce for Poverty Elimination for making this observation at a preliminary presentation of the data

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the University of Guelph under the COVID Catalyst Program [grant number 054597.