The Difference Between the Elderly and the Disabled.

Louis Shalako

My journey began May 4, 1989, when a plank in a scaffolding broke beneath me and I fell to my death.

Unfortunately, in some opinions, I survived. I have three compression fractures, at the T-6, L-3 and L-4 vertebrae. I saw a doctor the next day and he didn’t even bother to order an X-ray, although he did write a scrip for Tylenol-3s, 30-milligrams of codeine per tablet.

I’ve learned a lot, since then.

***

“You can earn up to a certain amount without telling us and without losing your benefits. For 2018, this amount is $5,500.00 (before taxes). This amount may increase in future years.”

At one time, a person on the Canada Pension Plan (Disability) benefit could earn as little as ten dollars and, because they were capable of doing some work, they would lose the benefits. 

That has since changed. Looking at the website, you can now earn up to $5,500.00 annually. 

What is really interesting is that you don’t even have to report it.

On the Ontario Disability Support Program, clients can only earn $200.00 per month, $2,400.00 a year.

In terms of operating a business, the paperwork takes me a couple of hours a month, including income, mileage and expense reports. People who are working for scab employers fill out a different form and for the most part, are too fucking dumb to claim expenses. It would be good if the Province of Ontario were to bring its policies more in line with the federal disability pension system. Note that the rates might be different in the two cases, my impression from years ago was that the federal system actually paid less than ODSP.

“For 2016, the average monthly CPP disability benefit is $933.82 and the maximum monthly amount is $1,290.81. You will receive the basic monthly amount fixed for all recipients ($471.43), plus an amount based on how much you contributed to the CPP during your entire working career. If you are receiving a CPP disability benefit, your dependent children may also be eligible for a children's benefit. In 2016, the flat monthly rate your child can receive is $237.69. Read more about the CPP benefits amounts.”

So, that part's not very good. 

I did apply for CPP(D) but did not qualify, this was in 1994 or 1995. A recent news story indicates that fewer Canadians are qualifying for benefits. According to this story, there are serious problems at or with CPP(D) and that’s certainly credible based on my experiences with this whole industry—and an industry it is, one that employs thousands in relatively good-paying government jobs. At the provincial level, it takes up a good chunk of the budget.

As we can see, the elderly, (who can be equally vulnerable) are sort of favoured over the disabled, who may, admittedly, be younger. That is the only distinction that I can see—other than the fact that old age pensions are paid into by those who are employed. The disabled may never have been employed, and therefore, there is no public fund for their maintenance. I was employed for about twelve years—all my other work experience has been an entrepreneurial, hand-to-mouth sort of subsistence. I didn’t make contributions, and I didn’t qualify for unemployment insurance. Let’s just say I didn’t starve to death and leave it at that—

Anyways, the statute of limitations has run out and perhaps that is a good thing.

Disabled persons on CPP(D) have to have recently paid into the system. How much, and for how long, would appear to be closely-guarded secrets.

Such programs are notoriously underfunded. It is a hallmark of all such systems.

Retirees of sixty-five or seventy years of age can work while receiving regular Canada Pension Plan benefits with no penalty. There is no limit—you can earn a million bucks and still get this pension benefit. This is why scab employers such as Walmart, Tim Horton’s, McDonalds, Burger King, and a thousand grocery stores across the province and the nation love to hire retirees. Walmart greeters are famous for their average and collective age. But they don’t have to live on the money, whether it is full, or more likely part-time employment. 

They are using the additional earnings for luxuries, Christmas presents, travel, spoiling the grand-kids, (and rightly so), or simply attaining some quality of life not offered by a base government pension and no savings, no private pension in many cases.

Retail isn’t the only industry that relies on subsidized labour. When I worked as a security guard, it was surprising, just how many people were retired from the military, ex-cops, and ex-firemen. But they had their pension already, they were bondable, they had some relevant experience, and they didn’t have to live on the money. It is also true some had been bankrupted by divorce (sometimes multiple divorces), and genuinely needed the money. 

There was some poverty there, as anyone drinking home percolator coffee from a Thermos and eating stale, single-slice bologna sandwiches with a thin scrape of butter and mustard on a long midnight shift can attest. I saw many of those along the way, guys without much education but also no criminal record. If nothing else, they were bondable, although they might have rolled up their own smokes on the kitchen table in a kind of quiet, genteel, Canadian desperation.

A bunch of people must have had their applications in. A bunch of us were called in one day…there was a strike on, and the money was good.

I went from $14.00 per hour on strike duty (where we crossed the picket lines twice a day), to $5.35 per hour when the strike ended and we were lucky enough for the company to take at least some of us on. That company is still in existence today, and I have no doubt that their basic practices haven’t changed. One of the company principals was also involved with a temporary placement company—an employment company.

They’d get you a minimum-wage job somewhere and then take a percentage of your cheque for the first six months. Since it was a temporary job, one has to wonder how many folks ever got out from under that. These guys will exploit the vulnerable, the desperate, or even just the stupid. They’re not all that picky.

What’s interesting is that on polling day, election day, the place is crawling with senior citizens. While 12.6 % of Canadians suffer from some form of disability, it’s like they just don’t vote or something.

Or maybe it’s just that no one cares—unless they’re running a food bank for forty-five thousand a year and bucking for sainthood on the front page of some crummy little Canadian newspaper somewhere with all kinds of feel-good, bullshit glorification of Canadian food banks.

END

Louis has all these books and stories on Smashwords. ( - ed.) 

Thank you for reading.

Working Part-Time, Operating a Business Under Ontario Disability Support Program Guidelines. Louis Shalako.

Okay, so I have a small publishing business, and I also work for someone else part-time.

I’ve been on the Ontario Disability Support Program for over twenty years.

I called my social worker and asked a few questions.

I asked about the Work-Related Benefit, the Business Start-Up Benefit, and other questions.

But here's an interesting question that I didn't ask. If you can only get the Work-Related Benefit after earning $100 in a month, and if you don't go over the income limit, what effect does it have to have expense deductions...??? If you're below the limit, you don't need the deduction. You need to get up the max level, (which I take to be $200), and only then claim an expense, in order to offset their fifty cents on the dollar claw-back for everything over the limit. Right? And you are allowed deductions, after all.

But. It seems to me, if you don't need the deduction, don't claim it—bearing in mind you might make a lot of money just before the end of the year. This is more of a question than a statement.

I'm being told they go through a year's worth of reports and then adjust the next year's income. And you can only claim an expense during the month you made the purchase. Yet at some point in the process, they must average the total on a monthly basis. If you made more than $2,400 in a year, with no deductions, they want fifty cents on the dollar.

Is it that simple?

If you're on disability, the odds are you aren't sophisticated enough to pick off those sorts of questions. Let alone figure out what's the best thing to do. And sometimes your social worker doesn't know either.

One wonders if they deduct a $100 expense against $50 income in a given month, and then what? Use the negative integer in determining the monthly average of the yearly income...??? In which case you’re a lot less likely to qualify for the $100 Work-Related Benefit.

No one tells you this, they let you flounder around on your own. And it's a lot to remember anyways. We don't even know what questions to ask, sometimes.

Now, a few people over the years have said the ODSP 'helped someone buy a house.'

According to the social worker, they do not. It’s funny how people insist that they are right, to the extent of getting angry if you contradict them—even in the light of facts supplied by ODSP staff.

The only circumstances that they could be talking about would be an inheritance, a big gift, a lottery win, or a big windfall of some sort. Theoretically, you could put a down payment on a house, and they won't hit you with an over-payment by saying that it's income. Theoretically, someone could also give you a house, and it’s not considered, ‘income.’ But that is my interpretation—I didn’t actually ask that question.

As for the Business Start-Up Benefit, that is only if I start up something new—as of now that's not true. I started working for someone else, part-time, last June.

As for the internet, we agree it is vital for the publishing side, and for my labour side one must presume, as I blog and take photos for a customer and all of that. I doubt if the phone will be apportioned, but you never know. Yet some portion of that is definitely used for business. When you consider how few personal calls I get, I would say the majority of it.

You're only going to get so much out of five or six minutes on the phone.

I also think it would be pretty easy to get discouraged, to lose part of your income or other benefits unnecessarily, and ultimately to say, ‘to hell with it—it’s just not worth it.’ And yet the ODSP and the government cheerfully admit that the disabled have the right to work.

In fact, they even encourage it to some extent, judging by the slick radio ads.

***

The ODSP is unlikely to give much more than a one or two percent raise per year, (which is actually below the level of inflation and represents a yearly net loss of income), and nothing if the Conservatives win election, for the duration of their mandate.

In future, it would be beneficial to peg annual increases to the level of inflation, or two or three percent, whichever is more.

Bearing in mind not everyone would be able to benefit from these changes, the best thing the ODSP could do would be to raise the allowable earnings limit, and also raise the mileage rate from $0.18 to something more in line with industry standard. Some of the other guidelines are pretty murky, which must be a pain for staff as much as for the client.

Also, income support decisions can be appealed and must be provided in writing, along with instructions on how to ask for an internal review, and ultimately an appeal. Yet it is unclear whether decisions to withhold some other benefits can be appealed. I couldn't find anything on that on the website, nothing really clear anyways. The thing is, there's not much point in appealing if there's no way to win. Getting in the face of the staff isn't helpful as they're not the ones who wrote the guidelines. They're as hamstrung by guidelines as the client is.

#ODSP

Louis Shalako books and stories are available from Amazon.

Photo Credit.


Thank you for reading.