soprie:

thefriendlymushroom:

astercorvidae:

purplespacecats:

allthecanadianpolitics:

More details have emerged about the Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB) announced last week by the federal government, and it has become clear that many Canadians who need support will not be included in the flagship income support program.

The Benefit was touted last week as a direct benefit of $2,000 per month to help all those who had lost their income due to the COVID-19 crisis, a substantial improvement on the two separate benefits the government had initially announced. Unfortunately, the text of the legislation confirms that many Canadians who need relief will not benefit from the program.

These exclusions stem from the CERB’s eligibility criteria which extends support only to those who meet each of the following requirements:

Had a total income of at least $5,000 in 2019 or the 12-month period preceding their application date;
Stop working for 14 consecutive days within the four-week period for which they apply for the CERB (it appears that applications must be renewed every four weeks) for reasons related to COVID-19;
Do not receive any income whatsoever during those 14 days; and,
Did not stop working voluntarily.

These criteria have a number of problematic implications.

Freelance or self-employed workers whose income has been dramatically reduced, but not wiped out altogether, will not qualify for the CERB. For example, a freelancer writer who normally earns $3,000 per month but is now earning only $300 per month would be excluded by requirement #3 above.

Similarly, “gig economy” workers may also be excluded from support altogether. Rideshare drivers, food delivery couriers and other gig workers may see their earnings drastically reduced but not eliminated. In this case, they would also be excluded by the third requirement.

If these workers chose to stop working, they could be excluded by requirement four. It’s possible they could reasonably claim to have stopped working for health and safety reasons related to COVID-19, but this has not been made clear.

Students and recent graduates will be excluded from the CERB, unless they earned $5,000 in employment income in the past 12 months. Many of them will have not reached that earnings threshold. More than 543,000 people graduated from post-secondary institutions in 2017 (the most recent year for which I could find Statistics Canada data). A new cohort of post-secondary students is scheduled to graduate this spring. Those entering the job market for the first time are now likely out of luck. Not only will they be unable to access income support due to the first requirement, they are also likely going to be shut out of work for at least the next few months as businesses freeze hiring. There is no justification for excluding these people, who are often in an extremely precarious position in normal circumstances, from financial relief right now.

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Tagging: @politicsofcanada @abpolitics

FUCKING THANK YOU

i am so tired of well-meaning people telling me i can get CERB. like, yes i lost my income due to the pandemic, but it was because i stopped working “voluntarily” to avoid killing my roommate. people at high risk for covid19 complications and people in their households who work in essential services are expected to just keep going to work until we get sick, and then we fucking qualify. my roommate is chronically ill, and my job forced me to come into contact with hundreds of people over the course of a week, so it’s way too much of a risk to her for me to keep working as a foodora biker. but because i theoretically could still be working, the canadian government sees no reason to give me financial support.

likewise, i have a friend with asthma who’s a cashier at reno depot. her only options are to keep working or stop getting paid; if she stops working before she’s already fucking caught covid19, it’s considered “voluntary”

it’s absolute bullshit

Yeah same, my roommate and I both have asthma. He works at retail and can’t afford to quit so we’re fuck on that front. AND I’m a student that only works in the summer and won’t be able to now. I made less than $5000 in the last year and I quit my last job so like I can’t get help on multiple fronts. I’m so frustrated with how the government has been handling everything so far. I don’t think I’ve written so many letters to government in such a short time in my life. On top of not helping students, disabled people, and a plethora of others there doing an oil and gas bailout jfojdnfkdoelkdkdlwksnxld

I had to quit my last job a little over a month ago because I couldn’t afford to continue living in the city where I worked so I moved back home. I’ve applied for EI and other jobs since then to get income but so far I haven’t heard anything back. (It really didn’t help that one of my jobs in the last year was really late in getting me the documents I needed to even complete the EI application so it was only sent off recently.)

The problem here is that I’m young and relatively healthy so I should be able to get work. But with a lot of jobs shutting down due to the pandemic and the backlog on EI stuff, I don’t think I’m looking at an income any time soon. Adding to that, a little while ago I started coughing - I don’t have a fever or shortness of breath or anything else, just a cough. Not sure if it’s more than a stress cough, a cold, or just my chronic cough coming back to bit me in the ass but that it just adds to my worry about not getting a job since I doubt anyone will want to hire someone with a cough, even if it is literally just a cough. (Which, for all I know, it is since I can’t really get tested where I live especially since it is only the one symptom. But I doubt a lot of people are willing to take the chance.)

Disabled people such as myself do not qualify for CERB.

1) My primary income comes from my disability cheque from the provincial government, but since disability is so painfully low, I am forced to work to pay my bills. 

2) The work I have done to supplement my bills 1) Ended due to covid and 2) does not come out to $5,000 anyway

3) The BC provincial government’s law claw back ANY federal aid dollar-for-dollar if you receive assistance. I previously lost almost $2,000 worth of federal EI because I had to stop working due to injury. The provincial government forced me to take out federal EI because it threatened to take away my disability benefits, and then took EVERY SINGLE DOLLAR the feds gave me out of my provincial cheque so that I had nothing. Instead of having support during a time when i could not get out of bed, I couldn’t pay my bills. the BC disability system is atrocious and now we don’t even qualify for federal help.