Letter: AISH payments need more than reindexing

By Letter to the Editor on October 12, 2022.

Dear editor,

The discussion about AISH in the political arena has been centred around reindexing, which is nice and should be done. But it is too little too late. There has not been a significant raise in AISH since Alison Redford was premier, and she stepped down in 2014.

The current AISH is $1,685 per month, which is $15 an hour at 26 hours per week, if that is considered a living wage. Making $15 per hour was considered a living wage in Medicine Hat in 2018.

$1,685 is not much to live on if you consider housing. Housing is supposed to be one third of your income, therefore a person on AISH should be spending $562 on housing.

The living wage in Edmonton is currently $18.20 an hour.

The UCP government made the mistake of moving the pay date to the first of the month from four days before. Now some people on AISH have to make late payment charges too. This was done to save a money.

I think we need more than reindexing AISH and Income Support.

Dianne MacNaughton

Redcliff

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