A2---------- THE OTTAWA CITIZEN------- NEWS ---------TUESDAY, JULY 13, 1999
Prisoners escape tough EI laws
Most unemployed slipped through safety net,
except those in jail, StatsCan report shows
BY ERIC BEAUCHESNE
· Employment insurance changes have meant hard times for many, but not those doing hard time. Prisoners are among a rare group given a dispensation from the reformed El rules that cut off most unemployed from benefits once they've been out of work more than a year. The revelation came in a Statistics Canada report that showed most unemployed did not get benefits last year, and as a result, many are having a tough time making ends meet. "Very few people without recent employment can receive benefits because only in exceptional cases are benefit periods extended beyond 52 weeks," the report noted. Surprisingly, the exceptional cases included those "spending time in a detention centre."
· Most unemployed are falling through the shrunken El safety net, despite the fact that the government has collected more than $20 billion in premiums than it has paid out in benefits.
· The figures on the large proportion of unemployed not getting benefits - more than 60 per cent - were garnered from the report prepared for Human Resources Canada and based on a survey of jobless persons.
· The government has come under increasing fire in recent years as the proportion of unemployed getting benefits has shrunken at the same time that its jobless insurance fund surplus has ballooned to more than $20 billion.
· Some had exhausted their benefits without being able to find another job, mostly men "Four in every 10 unemployed people not eligible for El said that they had a difficult time coping. "That is, the income they were relying on was not enough to meet regular household expenses," Statistics Canada explained..........."18.9 per cent of ineligible unemployed had as their main source of income the wages of a spouse or common-law partner."
FULL STORY :-
A2 -----------THE OTTAWA CITIZEN -----------NEWS ------------TUESDAY, JULY 13, 1999
Prisoners escape tough EI laws
Most unemployed slipped through safety net,
except those in jail, StatsCan report shows
BY ERIC BEAUCHESNE
Employment insurance changes have meant hard times for many, but not those doing hard time.
Prisoners are among a rare group given a dispensation from the reformed El rules that cut off most unemployed from benefits once they've been out of work more than a year.
The revelation came in a Statistics Canada report that showed most unemployed did not get benefits last year, and as a result, many are having a tough time making ends meet.
"Very few people without recent employment can receive benefits because only in exceptional cases are benefit periods extended beyond 52 weeks," the report noted.
Surprisingly, the exceptional cases included those "spending time in a detention centre."
But most unemployed are falling through the shrunken El safety net, despite the fact that the government has collected more than $20 billion in premiums than it has paid out in benefits.
Less than 40 per cent got any benefits, and 40 per cent of those say they had a tough time making ends meet.
A major reason that more than 60 per cent of the unemployed didn't get any benefits is that they had not worked in the last year, many of them long-term unemployed who had exhausted their benefits.
Long-term unemployment soared this decade as corporations cut jobs to meet the increased competition here and abroad and governments cut staff and spending to wipe out their
deficits.
The figures on the large proportion of unemployed not getting benefits - more than 60 per cent - were garnered from the report prepared for Human Resources Canada and based on a survey of jobless persons.
The report, however, took a more positive focus, stressing instead that more than one-half of the unemployed were at least "potentially eligible" for EI, even if they didn't actually get any benefits.
The government has come under increasing fire in recent years as the proportion of unemployed getting benefits has shrunken at the same time that its jobless insurance fund surplus has ballooned to more than $20 billion.
There were a variety of reasons offered why those, although potentially eligible for benefits didn't get any. Some had exhausted their benefits without being able to find another job, mostly men, and others weren't aware they were entitled to benefits, mainly young people.
Nearly one in five of the youths eligible for benefits did not get them because they did not claim them.
The survey also found that "four in every 10 unemployed people not eligible for El said that they had a difficult time coping.
"That is, the income they were relying on was not enough to meet regular household expenses," Statistics Canada explained.
"One third of all ineligible unemployed people lived with parents and relied on them to meet day-to-day needs. Another 23.3 per cent lived in households where the main source of income was social assistance; a further 18.9 per cent of ineligible unemployed had as their main source of income the wages of a spouse or common-law partner."