October 2000 Fraser Forum: October Questions & Answers and October Graph
Q: How many people collect welfare in Canada? How does this vary by province and territory?
A: In the 1998/99 fiscal year there were 2.3 million Canadians collecting welfare. This represents about 7.5 percent of the total population. The column second from the right in table 1 shows the number of people on welfare by province and territory1 in Canada in 1998/99. Welfare beneficiaries account for between 2.5 percent of the population (Alberta) and 16.6 percent of the population (Northwest Territories).
Q: How has the number of people collecting welfare changed in the 1990s?
A: There were 1.9 million people (7.0 percent of the population) collecting welfare in 1989/90. The Yukon had the lowest percentage of its population on welfare at 3.7 percent while the Northwest Territories had the highest at 16.8 percent. The number of welfare beneficiaries grew until it peaked in 1993/94 at 3.1 million. Put another way, almost 11 percent of all Canadians were collecting welfare in 1993/94. This increase was in large part due to the fact that the number of people on welfare in Ontario more than doubled between 1989/90 and 1993/94. The number of people collecting welfare in Canada has been dropping since it peaked in 1993/94. Table 1 shows with a box the year in which, for each jurisdiction, welfare beneficiaries as a percent of population was at its highest point. The ratio peaked in three jurisdictions prior to 1993/94, four in 1993/94, and five after 1993/94. The far right column in table 1 shows that, both in absolute numbers and as a percent of the population, there were more people collecting welfare in 1998/99 than there were in 1989/90.
Q: How does the number of welfare recipients in Canada compare to that in the United States? How has this changed over the last 30 years?
A: In 1998/99 there were 2.3 million Canadians (7.5 percent of the population) and 7.2 million Americans (2.7 percent of the population) on welfare. This month’s graph shows the number of welfare recipients as a percent of population for both Canada and the United States from 1969/70 through 1998/99. This ratio peaked in the US at 5.5 percent in 1992/93, and in Canada at 10.8 percent in 1993/94.
October Graph
Note
1Henceforth, provinces and territories will be referred to as jurisdictions.
Joel Emes (joele@fraserinstitute.ca) is Senior Research Economist at The Fraser Institute. He has an M.A. in Economics from Simon Fraser University.
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