The federal government is shifting the share of overall spending on child benefits away from lower-income families to middle- and upper-middle-income families at an even greater degree than previously thought, a Fraser Institute study says.
The study looks into the Canada Child Benefit (CCB)—a tax-free payment that was said to target low- and middle-income families—and how its tax-free benefits affect the distribution of the program’s overall spending.
It compares CCB spending adjusted for its tax-free status against both actual CCB spending and the spending done under the two previous federal programs—the Universal Child Care Benefit (UCCB) and the Canada Child Tax Benefit (CCTB)—which were not tax free and were replaced by the CCB in 2019….