New figures show Newfoundland and Labrador is home to the highest proportion of residents using social assistance programs among the provinces.

Numbers from Toronto-based anti-poverty thinktank Maytree show an average of seven per cent of the population used social assistance programs in 2021-22. But that’s not much different from Ontario which distributed income support to 6.9 per cent of the population.

There were slightly over 28,000 beneficiaries of government assistance in Newfoundland and Labrador in the year in question. The number of cases and beneficiaries fell consistently from the mid-1990’s through to the mid-2010’s, followed by a period of stability up until the beginning of the pandemic in 2020.

In 1996-97 nearly 15 per cent was on social assistance.

Alberta had the lowest rates at 3.8 per cent, followed by Quebec at 4.3 per cent and New Brunswick at 4.4 per cent.