Social Assistance Use in Canada: National and Provincial Trends in Incidence, Entry and Exit

Canada witnessed a dramatic decline in welfare participation from 1993/94 to the end of the nineties - one almost on a par with the U.S., but without the sort of landmark legislation adopted there. We explore the dynamics of Social Assistance usage in Canada over this period using data based on tax files for between 2 and 4 million individuals in each year from Canada's Longitudinal Administrative Data - the LAD. The unique attributes of this base - size, longitudinal nature, and income information availability - allow us, for the first time, to calculate annual incidence, entry and exit rates both at the national and provincial levels, broken down by family type. We discuss the variety of experiences of these groups; we identify the policy context and discuss the implications of the findings.