Is it fair for the government to claw back child support from social assistance payments to parents?
Anupam Kakkar doesn’t think so. According to the Toronto Star, he’s taking the provincial government to court over its practice of deducting child support from social assistance payments. While he pays $645 a month to the mother of his two children, none of it goes to them, the
Star reported.
It’s a difficult issue, of course. On the one hand, deducting extra money received by social assistance recipients is an accepted practice that limits taxpayers’ financial obligations and maintains the program’s essential purpose of providing basic support. On the other hand, it seems reasonable that the children should benefit from some of the money paid on their behalf. And while the government can make a reasonable argument that the money it provides accounts for the needs of the children, it’s also very true that social assistance rates are so low that they don’t actually do that.
The lawsuit comes as the B.C. government has taken action on the issue by ending the clawback of child support from income or disability assistance. As a result, recipients can now keep every dollar they get in child support.
It’s obvious why that’s an attractive solution. But what about fairness to social assistance recipients who don’t get child support? They obviously have to make do with the standard social assistance rates while others get the benefit of the additional child support.
Fortunately, a 2012 report by former cabinet minister Francis Lankin and statistician Munir Sheikh offers somewhat of an answer. Among their recommendations to the province for reforming social assistance in Ontario was the suggestion of treating child support payments as earned income. Such a change would allow recipients to keep some of the child support they receive with benefits reduced by 50 cents on the dollar rather than dollar for dollar under the current system.
There may be other concerns about treating child support as earned income, but it’s certainly worth considering. It essentially maintains the logic of the current system of ensuring that parents provide the support they owe while allowing children to actually benefit in part from those payments. If social assistance payments reflected reality, that might not be necessary. But given that that’s not the case, it’s time to look at alternatives.
