The New Brunswick government seems proud of its $300 New Brunswick Workers Benefit handout idea, but in practice, ordinary people must clear some significant hurdles to access this modest amount. The benefit campaign appears to be a stingy pre-election gimmick.
The provincial government says that it recognizes “that the rising cost of living has impacted many New Brunswickers” and that a helpful solution in the light of rising hardship is to offer “eligible New Brunswickers one-time benefit of $300 to help to offset financial pressures.”
However, whether you are a working individual or part of a six-member family, the amount you will receive will be the same because it is a household benefit. (Households with a net income of $70,000 or less qualify.) As an individual, you may make use of this benefit for a little longer, but as a large family, $300 will not offset significant financial pressures.
Advertising expenses for the benefit, along with processing and administrative costs, appear to be a waste of time and resources for the provincial government. The whole campaign raises many questions.
For example, if this campaign was truly intended to help financially struggling New Brunswickers, wouldn’t it include others in real financial peril such as retirees and social assistance recipients? And wouldn’t it be ongoing and more easily accessible?
Even as a one-off benefit, the entire process for applicants should be simpler. It could be as simple as a public announcement and e-transfer to all those whose latest income tax figures meet a set criteria.
After all, the Canada Revenue Agency already has net household income figures, and if the person or family qualifies, they could receive the $300 e-transfer while the CRA could forward the bill to our province. Surely this information could be made available and accessible to the province, saving our provincial government money at the same time.
Roadblocks
Instead of a roadblock freeway, applicants must engage in a process that can be arduous and lengthy for many. For starters, applicants must submit a “proof of income” statement. This can be relatively straightforward for people with an online CRA account (a system known as “My Account”) — or those with a friendly and responsive accountant.
Others can order the proof of income statement by phone, but they will need to dig through their records to find Line 15000 from their most recent assessment. (Setting up an online account is a whole other process.) Of course, all of this only applies to people who file their tax returns, effectively excluding perhaps 10 per cent of the population.
Once the proof of income statement is obtained, applying for the benefit is relatively straightforward, taking around 5-10 minutes at most. But this assumes that the applicant has access to a computer in order to fill in the required forms.
Based on my experience applying for the benefit, here’s what happens next: once the form is electronically submitted, the applicant will get a message informing them that due to the high volume of applications, the processing of the payment will take six to eight weeks.
A few weeks later, another message will arrive confirming or rejecting the application and once it is confirmed, an email will tell the applicant that, once again, due to an overwhelming number of applications, the paperwork will not be processed for another 2-3 weeks.
Although one must process the application and obtain information with the help of technology all the way, in the end, applicants receive an old-fashioned paper cheque, that will need to be taken to the bank, unless one has a flashy mobile banking app set up on their phone.
Considering this overlong and tedious process, it is not surprising that applications for the workers’ benefit are running way below government projections, according to a CBC report on May 14.
Not a single part of the workers benefit application process is made easy or time-saving. The process assumes that applicants own and know how to navigate technology and CRA records. It also seems like an administratively costly and time-consuming operation for the government, disproportionate to the outcomes that it would bring to New Brunswickers. Hence inevitably it raises the question: who is benefiting from it and what is it really for?
Milda Titford is entering her fourth year as a social work student at St. Thomas University.
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