The ongoing cost-of-living crisis has highlighted the deficiencies in Canada’s social safety net. Provincial social assistance programs, which are supposed to provide a minimum level of income to buy food and other essential needs, fall short.

Low-income households, which spend a larger proportion of their income on basic needs, are most affected by food and shelter inflation. Single parents and working-age unattached adults are more likely to be low-income than other family types.

There is an urgent need to increase income supports to low-income households. This report outlines the various cash-transfer mechanisms that the federal government could use. It focuses on reforms to already existing cash-transfer programs delivered through the Canada Revenue Agency, including the Goods and Services Tax/Harmonized Sales Tax (GST/HST) credit, the Canada Child Benefit and the Canada Workers Benefit, because these reforms could be implemented more quickly than designing an entirely new benefit.