The Effect of Differences in Treatment of the Canada Emergency Response Benefit across Provincial and Territorial Income Assistance Programs.

Abstract

The Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB) is a temporary cash transfer program for workers who have reduced earnings due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Some workers receiving the CERB also receive provincial or territorial income assistance. A lack of clear objectives and definitions related to the CERB has led to the CERB being treated very differently by provincial and territorial income assistance (IA) programs. We look at how these different treatments of CERB under provincial income assistance programs affect IA clients across jurisdictions. We consider arguments for why the CERB should have been fully exempted from IA benefits.