Article content continued

Single participants receive up to $16,989 a year while couples receive up to $24,027, less 50% of any earned income.

Participants in the program received an email Wednesday saying their payments would continue through August, and MacLeod said her ministry would issue further details to participants shortly.

Those who previously received Ontario Works social assistance program would likely rolled back into the program, she said.

On Tuesday, MacLeod described the previous system enacted by the former Liberal government as a “disjointed, patchwork system with no interest in whether these programs delivered results.”

“We’re going to hit the pause button on the previous government’s patchwork system and replace it with a system that helps stabilize people in need and support them to succeed,” she said in a statement.

Caseworkers spend between 70 and-90% of their time doing paperwork under the old system, she said — one that enables users to get caught up in cycles of poverty.

NDP legislator Lisa Gretzky, the party’s social services critic, said the government had pulled the rug out from under vulnerable Ontarians and would likely continue to do so.

Interim Liberal Leader John Fraser said the Tories had done nothing but tear things down and would continue to do so.