Single parents who depend on social assistance are in for a jolt. Their basic needs allowance will drop by $8 this month.

The reduction, effective Aug. 1, applies to both Ontario Works (commonly known as welfare) and the Ontario Disability Support program. Together they provide financial assistance to approximately 170,000 families.

There was no mention of this in Finance Minister Charles Sousa’s July 14 budget. He told social assistance recipients their rates would be going up by 1 per cent. That is true, but it won’t happen until Oct. 1. Right now provincial officials are implementing the latest phase of their “rate restructuring” plan.

It was launched six years ago after former premier Dalton McGuinty announced a new Ontario Child Benefit targeted at low-income families. Its value was slated to rise each year.

The benefit has indeed grown — from $250 a year per child in 2007 to $1,310 on July 1, 2014. But it comes with a catch: every time the Ontario Child Benefit goes up, the parent’s basic needs allowance goes down by a commensurate amount.

To policy-makers, this makes perfect sense. It takes children off the welfare rolls and encourages their parents to get a job.

To parents struggling to make ends meet, it makes no sense whatsoever. The province gives with one hand and takes with the other, leaving them no better off. In fact, they lose ground because the cost of living is rising faster than social assistance rates.

According to John Stapleton of Open Policy Ontario, which tracks financial support for families in need, welfare incomes adjusted for inflation have dropped by 34 per cent since the Liberals took power in 2003. Disability support payments have fallen by 14 per cent.

It took awhile for low-income parents to recognize the discrepancy between the government’s words and actions.

As far as they are concerned, the social assistance system is an incomprehensible maze in which bad things happen for no apparent reason. Most Ontarians are equally confused. The rules are bewilderingly complex, they keep changing and they vary from one client to the next. The only people who seem to know what’s going on are bureaucrats who run the system, the directors of large service agencies, a few legal aid specialists and a handful of low-income advocates.

This has allowed the governing Liberals to portray themselves as champions of the poor.

They are less punitive than the Conservatives who chopped welfare rates by 21.6 per cent under former premier Mike Harris and kept them frozen for eight years. But both McGuinty and Premier Kathleen Wynne have steadfastly ignored pleas by the province’s poorest citizens to put food in the budget; provide a shelter allowance; or bring welfare rates ($11,184 a year for a single parent with a child under 18) up to Statistics Canada’s low-income cut-off ($22,831 for a two-person household in Toronto).

What Ontario’s last two premiers have done instead is appoint panels and commissions, hold consultations, tinker with the rules and make it clear that social assistance recipients — except those with severe disabilities — are expected to work.

Sousa’s latest budget is an example:

It raises social assistance rates for families by 1 per cent. (Inflation is currently running at 2.4 per cent).

It allows social assistance recipients to earn up to $200 a month without losing their benefits. “This will allow them to gain a foothold in the labour force.”

It relaxes the rule requiring social assistance applicants to liquidate their assets — bank savings, a car, work tools, family heirlooms — to get help.

It permits social assistance recipients to accept gifts of up to $6,000 without being penalized.

It expands the province’s student nutrition program in low-income neighbourhoods.

And it indexes Ontario’s $11 per hour minimum wage.

Wynne described it as the “most progressive budget in decades.” Sadly, she’s right, but only because the standard slipped so far under Harris and McGuinty. In terms of real relief for the poor, her government’s economic blueprint contained little.

Social assistance recipients barely raised their voices, knowing it would be futile.

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Times are tough for everyone. People are less generous than they once were. Ontario’s tradition of caring for the disadvantaged and vulnerable has faded.

One hope remains. Wynne is to unveil a new poverty reduction plan this fall. The province’s poorest parents dream it will allow them to pay the rent and feed the kids.

Carol Goar’s column appears Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

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