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Employment Insurance: The exhaustees

Employment insurance is a legacy of the Great Depression, and remains a pillar of Canada's social safety net. The system was created to provide an income while unemployed workers find new jobs, but expanded to include seasonal workers, new parents and those caring for ill relatives. Canada's EI system was once among the most generous plans in the world, but tightened rules in 1996 brought surpluses in the billions of dollars. CBC Digital Archives documents how employment insurance has evolved since 1941.

With no work to be found amidst sky-high unemployment rates in 1982, Jim Lees reluctantly joins a club that is welcoming thousands of new members a month. "Exhaustees," as the government calls them, are people whose unemployment benefits have run out. From a former salary of $2,300 monthly, Lees is now applying for welfare benefits of just $800 to support his wife and two daughters. In this CBC-TV clip, his wife Wendy admits that while it bothers her to be forced onto welfare, she isn't in a position to refuse it. 
• At the time of this clip, employment minister Lloyd Axworthy had just received a government report on exhaustees. A previous report in 1976 found that the majority of exhaustees found jobs when their benefits ran out. • Six years later, at the height of a devastating recession, the 1982 report estimated that 55,000 Canadians per month would exhaust their benefits. It projected that the number might climb to 70,000 to 90,000 per month in early 1983.

• The government responded to the report by creating an emergency job program that would give people enough work to requalify for UI benefits.

• Axworthy noted that while the percentage of exhaustees who went on to collect welfare was not much higher during the 1982 recession than in non-recessionary times, absolute numbers were elevated due to the high unemployment rate of 12.2 per cent.

• An analysis of exhaustees whose benefits had expired three to seven weeks earlier found that 50 per cent were still seeking work, 30 per cent had found jobs, 10 per cent were on welfare and 10 per cent had given up looking for work.

• By July 1983 the exhaustee numbers were encouraging: in April, May and June of that year there were about 66,000 exhaustees, fewer than the 37,000 to 92,000 that the report had predicted for the second quarter. However, the numbers crept up again in autumn that year, reaching almost 75,000 in November 1983.

Medium: Television
Program: The Journal
Broadcast Date: Nov. 4, 1982
Reporter: Jerry McIntosh
Duration: 6:10

Last updated: February 8, 2012

Page consulted on March 27, 2013

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