National Versus Regional Financing and Management of Unemployment and Related Benefits: The Case of Canada

David Gray

No 14, OECD Social, Employment and Migration Working Papers from OECD Publishing

Abstract: Decentralization looms large in any analysis of Canadian economic and social policy. This trend has been especially pronounced in the area of unemployment insurance (UI) and social assistance (SA) programmes. Provinces now manage SA programmes and retain 100% of any cost savings that they achieve, while the Federal government maintains full responsibility for the passive component of UI. Under a series of provincial-federal Labour Market Development Agreements, since 1997 most of Canada's provinces have taken over administrative responsibility for the employment benefit and support measures (EBSMs) targeted on UI beneficiaries. A number of articles have examined the implications for provincial SA systems of restrictive measures in the UI programme. This paper examines the possibility that provinces may shift actual and potential SA clients onto the insurance system (now called employment insurance, EI). It concludes that within the context of EBSMs, any cost-shifting of this ... La décentralisation figure en tête de toute analyse de la politique économique et sociale canadienne. Cette tendance n'est nulle part plus prononcée que dans le domaine des programmes d'assurance-chômage (AC) et d'aide sociale. Les provinces maintenant gèrent les programmes d'aide sociale et récupèrent 100% de toute économie obtenue, alors que le gouvernement fédéral conserve la pleine responsabilité pour le volet passif de l'AC. Aux termes d'une série d'Ententes sur le développement du marché du travail (EDMT), depuis 1997 la plupart des provinces canadiennes ont la responsabilité de gestion pour les Prestations d'emploi et mesures de soutien (PEMS) ciblées sur les allocataires de l'AC. Il existe quelques études portant sur les conséquences des mesures restrictives appliquées au programme d'AC pour les programmes provinciaux d'aide sociale. Cet article étudie la possibilité que les provinces fassent basculer sur le système d'assurance (nommé maintenant l'assurance-emploi, AE) les ...

JEL-codes: J64 J65 J68 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2003-09-19
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-bec, nep-fmk, nep-geo and nep-lab
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (13)

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