IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/clh/briefi/v13y2020i16.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Less Income for More Hours of Work: Barriers to Work for Social Assistance Recipients in B.C

Author

Listed:
  • Gillian Petit

    (University of Calgary)

  • Craig Scott

    (University of Calgary)

  • Blake Gallacher

    (University of Calgary)

  • Jennifer Zwicker

    (University of Calgary)

  • Lindsay Tedds

    (University of Calgary)

Abstract

Individuals accept additional paid work, in terms of salary increase or more hours, with the expectation they will be financially better off than before. Unfortunately, for recipients of Income Assistance in the province of British Columbia, additional hours of employment or an increase in wages, such as an increase in minimum wage, in some circumstances may actually take money out of their pocket. This is due to the design of Income Assistance and its unintended interactions with other income and social support programs and the tax system. In this paper, we illustrate cases where B.C. residents receiving Disability Assistance or Temporary Assistance (the two main programs that comprise Income Assistance in B.C.) have less after-tax income after working additional hours of employment.

Suggested Citation

  • Gillian Petit & Craig Scott & Blake Gallacher & Jennifer Zwicker & Lindsay Tedds, 2020. "Less Income for More Hours of Work: Barriers to Work for Social Assistance Recipients in B.C," SPP Briefing Papers, The School of Public Policy, University of Calgary, vol. 13(16), July.
    • Handle: RePEc:clh:briefi:v:13:y:2020:i:16
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.policyschool.ca/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Less-Income-More-Work-Petit-et-al.pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Michael Carter & Christopher Barrett, 2006. "The economics of poverty traps and persistent poverty: An asset-based approach," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 42(2), pages 178-199.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Michael Carter & Peter Little & Tewodaj Mogues & Workneh Negatu, 2005. "Shocks, Sensitivity and Resilience: Tracking the Economic Impacts of Environmental Disaster on Assets in Ethiopia and Honduras," Development and Comp Systems 0511029, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. Barrientos, Armando, 2012. "Social Transfers and Growth: What Do We Know? What Do We Need to Find Out?," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 40(1), pages 11-20.
    3. Gignoux, Jérémie & Menéndez, Marta, 2016. "Benefit in the wake of disaster: Long-run effects of earthquakes on welfare in rural Indonesia," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 118(C), pages 26-44.
    4. Stoeffler, Quentin & Mills, Bradford, 2014. "Households’ investments in durable and productive assets in Niger: quasi-experimental evidences from a cash transfer project," 2014 Annual Meeting, July 27-29, 2014, Minneapolis, Minnesota 170212, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    5. Alain de Janvry & Elisabeth Sadoulet, 2019. "Transforming developing country agriculture: Removing adoption constraints and promoting inclusive value chain development," Working Papers hal-02287668, HAL.
    6. Alejandro de la Fuente & Eduardo Ortiz-Juárez & Carlos Rodríguez-Castelán, 2018. "Living on the edge: vulnerability to poverty and public transfers in Mexico," Oxford Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 46(1), pages 10-27, January.
    7. Bethelhem Legesse Debela, 2017. "Factors Affecting Differences in Livestock Asset Ownership Between Male- and Female-Headed Households in Northern Ethiopia," The European Journal of Development Research, Palgrave Macmillan;European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes (EADI), vol. 29(2), pages 328-347, April.
    8. Javier Parada Gómez Urquiza & Alejandro López-Feldman, 2013. "Poverty dynamics in rural Mexico: What does the future hold?," Ensayos Revista de Economia, Universidad Autonoma de Nuevo Leon, Facultad de Economia, vol. 0(2), pages 55-74, November.
    9. Perge, Emilie & McKay, Andy, 2016. "Forest clearing, livelihood strategies and welfare: Evidence from the Tsimane' in Bolivia," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 126(C), pages 112-124.
    10. van den Berg, Marrit & Burger, Kees, 2008. "Household Consumption and Natural Disasters: The Case of Hurricane Mitch in Nicaragua," 2008 International Congress, August 26-29, 2008, Ghent, Belgium 44380, European Association of Agricultural Economists.
    11. Brian Walsh & Stéphane Hallegatte, 2020. "Measuring Natural Risks in the Philippines: Socioeconomic Resilience and Wellbeing Losses," Economics of Disasters and Climate Change, Springer, vol. 4(2), pages 249-293, July.
    12. Trivelli, C. & Clausen, J. & Vargas, S., 2017. "IFAD RESEARCH SERIES 9 - Social protection and inclusive rural transformation," IFAD Research Series 280047, International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD).
    13. Yuan, Yan & Xu, Lihe, 2015. "Are poor able to access the informal credit market? Evidence from rural households in China," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 33(C), pages 232-246.
    14. Oo, Alex & Toth, Russell, 2014. "Do community-sanctioned social pressures constrain microenterprise growth? Evidence from a framed field experiment," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 33(C), pages 75-95.
    15. Dabla-Norris, Era & Bal Gündüz, Yasemin, 2014. "Exogenous Shocks and Growth Crises in Low-Income Countries: A Vulnerability Index," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 360-378.
    16. Andy McKay & Emilie Perge, 2013. "How Strong is the Evidence for the Existence of Poverty Traps? A Multicountry Assessment," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 49(7), pages 877-897, July.
    17. Kashi Kafle & Kevin McGee & Alemayehu Ambel & Ilana Seff, 2017. "Once Poor always Poor? Exploring Consumption- and Asset-based Poverty Dynamics in Ethiopia," Ethiopian Journal of Economics, Ethiopian Economics Association, vol. 25(2), May.
    18. Barnett, Barry J. & Barrett, Christopher B. & Skees, Jerry R., 2008. "Poverty Traps and Index-Based Risk Transfer Products," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 36(10), pages 1766-1785, October.
    19. Sushanta K. Mallick, 2014. "Disentangling the Poverty Effects of Sectoral Output, Prices, and Policies in India," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 60(4), pages 773-801, December.
    20. Janina Isabel Steinert & Lucie Dale Cluver & G. J. Melendez-Torres & Sebastian Vollmer, 2018. "One Size Fits All? The Validity of a Composite Poverty Index Across Urban and Rural Households in South Africa," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 136(1), pages 51-72, February.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:clh:briefi:v:13:y:2020:i:16. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Bev Dahlby). General contact details of provider: http://edirc.repec.org/data/spcalca.html .

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service hosted by the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis . RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.