A story in the Tyee, "A Welfare 'Savings' Boomerang" claims that two recent studies have shown that the BC Liberal's cuts to welfare in 2002 have drastically increased housing and health care costs, far more then the money saved cutting over 100,000 people off of welfare.

For two years, researchers from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives and Raise the Rates Coalition followed BC residents living on welfare. The study, Living on Welfare in BC: Experiences of Longer-Term “Expected to Work” Recipients (in PDF), found:

• Day-to-day life on welfare is mainly about survival;
• A link between welfare rules and homelessness;
• Welfare rates are too low
• Too many people are being cut off welfare;
• Too many people were inappropriately categorized as expected to work;
• Too many women were staying or returning to abusive relationships or the sex trade to survive and;
• Only a small percent of participants left poverty.

Read more on the CCPA page, Living in Poverty in BC and in an article on the Tyee, "Poverty Built into BC's System".

The Canadian Research Institute for the Advancement of Women has a new fact sheet, Women’s experiences of social programs for people with low incomes (in PDF). This fact sheet weaves together the voices of women with critical analysis and detailed evidence on how the devolution of social programs has impacted on diverse low-income women’s lives. It provides important evidence as to why and how listening to women’s voices is critical to knowing the real issues in policy making and programming. It combines existing quantitative research with new qualitative research based on the perspectives of policy makers, social service providers, low-income First Nations, immigrant, refugee women and women with disabilities from three Canadian cities.

L’impact des programmes sociaux : des femmes à faible revenu racontent (format pdf)
Ce feuillet d’information mêle divers témoignages de femmes à faible revenu avec une analyse critique et des informations détaillées sur l’impact de la dévolution des programmes sociaux. Il présente des informations concluantes qui soulignent l’importance d’écouter les femmes pour connaître les vrais problèmes auxquels doivent s’attaquer les politiques et les programmes. Il s’inspire du rapport intitulé Integrating the voices of low-income women into policy discussions on Canada Social Transfer (CST), une recherche qualitative menée en 2007 dans trois villes canadiennes avec des décideurs, des organismes de services sociaux et des femmes à faible revenu autochtones, immigrantes, réfugiées et handicapées. Des données quantitatives tirées de recherches antérieures viennent compléter le tableau.