B.C. residents are offered a large, complex web of income and social support programs. Those programs tend to be difficult to access, difficult to understand, and difficult to navigate, and are much more a collection of disparate programs than a cohesive and consistent system targeting an...

This paper examines the system of income and social supports available to B.C. residents and how programs interact with each other. We observe that programs can interact through “eligibility interactions” and “benefit interactions”; that is, one program can affect eligibility for another...

In this paper, we conduct a deep-dive into federal and provincial income and support programs available to B.C. residents. We look at individual program requirements and gaps between programs. Focusing on cash transfers, we examine how programs align with basic income principles of simplicity,...

We provide a systems-based overview of all income and social support programs provided by federal, provincial, and municipal governments that can be accessed by B.C. residents. We find that there are a number of areas for reform: the B.C. system of income and social supports is large and complex...

An important component of the work to be completed by the British Columbia’s Expert Panel on Basic Income is to design simulations to look at how various basic income (BI) models could work in B.C. (B.C. Poverty Reduction, 2018). The intent of these simulations is to identify the potential...

This paper delves into the academic literature that exists that models, in detail, specific basic incomes for Canada to understand what main proposals already exist in the literature. This information will help inform the work of B.C.’s Expert Panel on Basic Income in two ways. First, it will...

We detail the political party commitments of a basic income in Canada over the last decade, a period of time in which we have seen renewed conversations about a basic income in Canada. We find that in all but one case the policy commitments lack any detail about design choices and no commitments...

Basic income is not a single, uniform policy, but rather a range of policy proposals that share certain principles while also differing along key dimensions. Based on the extensive literature related to basic income, we conceptualize basic income as a class of policy proposals, all of which...

We present and assess extensive statistics regarding poverty rates and depths for Vancouver, B.C., and Canada. We show that not only are single adults in B.C. the most likely to experience poverty, but they also experience the deepest level of poverty. Both single adults and single parents who...

Although there are a number of benefits to using the income tax system to deliver a basic income guarantee (B.I.G) in Ontario, regardless of its form, there are also a number of difficulties. The purpose of this paper is to discuss how the PIT system, as it exists at both the federal and Ontario...