On July 1, Alberta began moving most recipients of the Assured Income for the Severely Handicapped (AISH) to a new program, the Alberta Disability Assistance Program, or ADAP .
Authors
- Michelle Maroto
Professor of Sociology, University of Alberta
- David Pettinicchio
Associate Professor, Sociology, University of Toronto
ADAP is intended for people whose disabilities restrict but do not completely prevent employment. It allows recipients to keep their disability benefits while earning more from their jobs, but its maximum monthly benefit is $1,740, $200 below the current maximum AISH benefit .
The change affects a large share of the nearly 80,000 people who received AISH. Those with severe or profound developmental disabilities or palliative or terminal conditions, among others, remain on AISH. Everyone else was streamed into ADAP unless they successfully reapplied for AISH through a new medical assessment.
The changes also reduce support for households in which both partners receive disability assistance. Starting with the August 2026 benefit period, each partner receives 88 per cent of the maximum individual benefit. Alberta says the change reflects shared household costs .
The policy is meant to encourage employment. But it also exposes a deeper problem in Canadian disability and social policy: income support, employment, savings, family resources and federal benefits are often treated as though they can simply substitute for one another.
When governments reduce one source of support, the assumption is that people will work more, draw on savings or rely on a spouse or other family members to make up the difference. In practice, this can shift economic risk away from governments and onto individuals and households.
Work cannot fill every gap
Nationally, 27 per cent of Canadians aged 15 and older reported having one or more disabilities in 2022, according to Statistics Canada. Many people with disabilities experience poverty , barriers to employment and significant obstacles to building wealth .
ADAP explicitly treats employment as a way to supplement public support. But people with disabilities are less likely to be employed, and those who work can face low wages, precarious employment, discrimination and unmet accommodation needs. Disability also varies considerably in ways that affect whether, how much and under what conditions someone can work.
Our research on disability-based labour market inequalities shows that employment outcomes depend not only on individual capacity, but also on labour market conditions and how work is organized.
Being capable of some paid work is therefore not the same as being able to find stable, adequately paid employment that can reliably replace lost income support.
Wealth is not an easy fallback
Savings are another resource governments may assume households can draw on when income falls. But what happens when households have no financial cushion?
Wealth provides a buffer when income disappears, work hours are reduced or an unexpected expense arises. Yet our research using the Canadian Survey of Financial Security found that households in which a respondent or their spouse reported a disability held substantially fewer non-housing assets than other households.
A household with little wealth has less ability to absorb a financial shock.
People with disabilities can therefore face barriers both to earning income and to building the assets that could cushion a loss of income. Asking them to absorb more economic risk means asking people with fewer resources to withstand greater uncertainty.
Families have limits
Family is another resource frequently treated as a private safety net. Alberta's new couples rule assumes partners share household costs and financial responsibility. But families vary widely in their ability to provide financial and practical support.
Disability can bring additional costs for transportation, medical care, equipment and personal assistance. Family members may also reduce their own employment to provide care.
Our research has found that people with disabilities and chronic health conditions sometimes relied on family support to manage economic insecurity, but family resources could not reliably substitute for employment, savings or adequate public benefits.
These pressures are compounded by Canada's fragmented disability-support system .
A patchwork of supports
Provincial assistance programs, Canada Pension Plan disability benefits, the federal Canada Disability Benefit, the Disability Tax Credit and various health and employment programs all carry different eligibility rules and definitions of disability.
Increasing support in one place does not necessarily improve a household's economic position if benefits are reduced somewhere else. For governments, these may be separate programs. For someone paying rent and buying groceries, they are all part of the same household budget.
Economic security among people with disabilities depends on multiple resources , including employment, savings and assets, family resources and government support. Where one source is weak, another may help, but our research suggests people with disabilities are likely to encounter barriers across several of these areas simultaneously.
That is why Alberta's reforms matter beyond Alberta. Disability policy cannot reduce poverty simply by shifting responsibility among governments, employers, families and individuals.
Employment cannot substitute for adequate income when suitable jobs are unavailable or earnings are insufficient. Savings cannot provide much of a buffer when households have little wealth, and families cannot be assumed to have unlimited money or caregiving capacity.
A policy that increases support in one place while withdrawing it somewhere else does not necessarily redistribute risk. It will simply move that risk around until it lands back on people with disabilities and their families.
Michelle Maroto receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) of Canada.
David Pettinicchio receives funding from SSHRC
