With CERB coming to an on September 26, 2020, many people are either transitioning to Employment Insurance (EI) if they still don't have job yet or one of the following benefits:
- Canada Recovery Benefit (CRB)
- Canada Recovery Sickness Benefit (CRSB)
- Canada Recovery Caregiving Benefit (CRCB)
Employment Insurance (EI)
For EI, the benefits vary depending on how much you earned, the number of hours you worked and is based on the unemployment in your region. However, you may be eligible for $400-573 and between 26-45 weeks.
Some small changes were made to EI to help more people become eligible.
- Minimum hours to qualify is 120 hours
- People claiming EI will receive 300 hours of regular credit or 480 hours of special credit for sickness, maternity or caregiver to help them qualify
Canada Recovery Benefit (CRB)
For those that don't qualify for the transition to EI, they can apply for the CRB. With this, you are eligible for $500 per week, up to 26 weeks for a total of $13,000. Alternatively if your EI runs out, you can apply to CRB to extend your benefits. The CRB will be available until September of 2021 for those that need to apply when their EI runs out or happen to lose their job some time between now and then. This is also intended to help people who cannot work or had their hours reduced because of COVID. This includes people who were self-employed, working gig jobs and contract workers. It's important to know that you cannot just quit your job to claim this benefit. Similar to the CERB, you need to have earned at at least $5,000 either in 2019 or 2020 to be eligible. Unlike the CERB, there is no longer a $1,000 maximum monthly earning limit to be eligible. This means that if you are employed in some way, you can earn over $1,000 at a job and still claim this benefit. However, there is a maximum annual earning limit of $38,000 to be eligible to claim this benefit.
Canada Recovery Sickness Benefit (CRSB)
This benefit isn't as long as CRB but helps by providing people who are sick or need to quarantine with some income. You can receive up to $500, up to 2 weeks for a total of $1,000. This provides stability for people who don't have access to sick leave like those working part-time, hourly or casual positions.
Canada Recovery Caregiving Benefit (CRCB)
Like the CRB, people are eligible for $500 per week, up to 26 weeks for a total of $13,000. This benefit is intended to help families that are unable to do more than 60% of their usual work due to:
- Having children under the age of 12
- Cannot care for their family because schools and daycares are closed
- A child or family member is sick or needs to be quarantined
EI will be handled by Service Canada. The remaining benefits will be handled by the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA), so you will need to apply through your MyCRA account if you haven't already made an online account for CERB. All the money earned from these benefits are taxable and you will only need to pay tax based on how much you earn. Remember taxes are based on a laddered bracket system here in Canada and if you earn under the threshold, you won't need to pay any taxes. Refer to my taxes post if you need a refresher.
These changes will be effective as of September 27, 2020 and additional changes might be added in the future. The application for the benefits excluding EI will open some time in October.
Stay safe out there!
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