Anyone receiving welfare benefits or disability assistance in B.C. will get a $100 monthly increase starting in September.
Starting Sept. 20, new monthly rates will be $1,133 for a person receiving disability assistance and $710 for a person on income assistance.
It is the first increase to B.C.’s welfare benefits in more than a decade.
Premier John Horgan announced the rate hike last month, saying the increase will move B.C. from one of the lowest assistance rates in the country to the third-highest among the provinces.
“We’re raising the rates that support people and help them live in dignity,” said Horgan.
Welfare benefits were frozen by the BC Liberal government on April 1, 2007.
While the former B.C. Liberal government slightly increased disability payments this year and in 2016, neither the disability nor the welfare benefits program has kept pace with inflation.
And that means they have covered fewer and fewer costs each year.