The National Child Benefit is an approach to helping children in low-income families get off to a good start in life through various initiatives by the federal, provincial, territorial, and First Nations governments. This publication begins with a national summary of Benefit funding by jurisdiction & program area. It then summarizes Benefit initiatives & funding by province & territory and for First Nations by region. Program areas are as follows: child benefits & earned income supplements; child/day care; supplementary health benefits; early childhood services and services for children at risk; and other services.

This budget document presents the federal proposal for an innovative approach to reduce child poverty and help make work pay. It first briefly reviews the situation of children in Canada and the difficulties that many families on welfare have when attempting to move from welfare to work. It then describes what federal, provincial, & territorial governments provide in the way of income support & child services. Finally, it presents the proposal for a National Child Benefit System, a joint approach that builds a stronger federal foundation for low-income families with children, accompanied by provincial/territorial investments in complementary programs targeted at improving work incentives & services for those families.

Child tax benefit, family benefits, reinvestment.

This report presents the results of a number of simulations with the Social Policy Simulation Database and Model (SPSD/M) of National Child Benefit (NCB) rules, isolating the impact of these rules on low-income or poverty rates and gaps in Canada. According to the after-tax LICO, now the most widely reported measure of low income or poverty, the national poverty rate for economic families with children - after the provincial clawback of the NCB supplement (NCBS) from social assistance recipients and the provincial re-investment in cash or income-support programs (excluding in-kind programs) are factored in - fell 4.6 per cent between 1996 and 1999 because of the introduction of the NCBS. The drop in the poverty gap was even greater: 8.7 per cent. Under the rules set to be in place by 2004, the decline in the after-tax LICO poverty rate is projected to be 11.8 per cent and that in the poverty gap 18.0 per cent relative to the rate and gap that would have prevailed in the pre-NCBS world. The improvement in the economic well-being of low-income families with children would be even larger if the impact of provincial in-kind programs financed by the NCBS through the social assistance clawback were included.

The National Child Benefit is a joint federal, provincial, and territorial initiative designed to help prevent and reduce the depth of child poverty, promote attachment to the labour market, and reduce government overlap and duplication. This report sets the context for future progress reports on the Benefit, which will monitor this initiative starting in fall 2000. The report discusses key aspects of the initiative, including the challenges faced by children in low income families; income and labour market trends in the years leading up to the introduction of the Benefit; how the initiative works and the latest program information available; and potential indicators of outcomes that may be used in the future to assess the progress and influence of the Benefit initiative. Finally, the report encourages Canadians to express their views on the initiative and on the report. Appendices include statistics on the Child Tax Benefit and Working Income Supplement, and information on the range of provincial, territorial, and First Nations initiatives under the National Child Benefit for the 1998-99 fiscal year.