TORONTO - More than 9,000 Ontarians joined the welfare rolls in July — the largest single-month increase in at least two years.
Sandy Mangat, a spokesman for the ministry of community and social services, said ministry officials know of no specific reason for the bump in cases.
“We think it’s a blip at this point,” Mangat said Tuesday. “We’re going to continue to monitor in the next couple of months and see what happens.”
The July results, the most recent Ontario Works figures available, show that 482,748 people were receiving social assistance that month.
That number is a 1.9% increase over the previous month, when 473,702 Ontarians were on assistance.
The caseloads were higher in all three categories of singles, couples and sole-support families.
The largest-percentage increase was among singles, with 3,763 people added to the list.
There were an additional 3,831 members of sole-support families as well.
Statistics Canada unemployment numbers may shed some light on the sudden increase in welfare cases, revealing that the province lost 22,000 jobs in July.
The unemployment rate actually fell slightly despite the job numbers because so many people dropped out of the labour force, StatsCan says.
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