{"id":6988,"date":"2024-03-27T17:26:54","date_gmt":"2024-03-27T20:26:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/?p=6988"},"modified":"2024-03-27T17:26:54","modified_gmt":"2024-03-27T20:26:54","slug":"nova-scotia-to-index-income-assistance-rates","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/2024\/03\/27\/nova-scotia-to-index-income-assistance-rates\/","title":{"rendered":"Nova Scotia to index income assistance rates"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_6990\" style=\"width: 1034px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-6990\" class=\"size-large wp-image-6990\" src=\"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/maguirehoustonleblanc-1024x689.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1024\" height=\"689\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/maguirehoustonleblanc-1024x689.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/maguirehoustonleblanc-768x517.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/maguirehoustonleblanc-1536x1034.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/maguirehoustonleblanc.jpg 1848w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-6990\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Community Services Minister Brendan Maguire at his swearing-in ceremony in February with Lt.-Gov. Arthur LeBlanc and Premier Tim Houston. (Communications Nova Scotia)<\/p><\/div>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Nova Scotia government will index social assistance payments after all.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The province announced Wednesday that it would index all income assistance payments annually based on the consumer price index. In 2024-25, rates will be indexed by 2.5 per cent.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Progressive Conservative government was criticized earlier in March after it unveiled its budget, with no provision for indexing income assistance.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Community Services Minister Brendan Maguire pushed for indexing the rates when he was a Liberal opposition member. But he told reporters in early March that it wasn\u2019t on the table right now.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">On Wednesday, though, Maguire said it\u2019s \u201canother action being taken by government to help vulnerable Nova Scotians find success.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The change will be implemented on July 1, with retroactive payments to April 1. Almost 24,000 Nova Scotians were collecting assistance as of Feb. 1. Indexing will cost about $7 million in 2024\/25.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Nova Scotia government will index social assistance payments after all. The province announced Wednesday that it would index all income assistance payments annually based on the consumer price index. In 2024-25, rates will be indexed by 2.5 per cent. The Progressive Conservative government was criticized earlier in March after it unveiled its budget, with [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,5],"tags":[1771,1940,1088,408,1939,1941,241,101,1938],"class_list":["post-6988","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-community-news","category-news-posts","tag-brendan-maguire","tag-community-services","tag-consumer-price-index","tag-cost-of-living","tag-income-assistance","tag-indexing","tag-nova-scotia","tag-progressive-conservative","tag-social-assistance"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6988","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6988"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6988\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6991,"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6988\/revisions\/6991"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6988"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6988"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6988"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}