Social Policy Trends: Income Support Caseloads in Alberta

This paper gives a compact overview of Alberta’s main income-support caseloads and argues against the idea that those caseloads are spiralling beyond reasonable need. It explains the distinct roles of AISH, the Expected to Work program, and the Barriers to Full Employment program, then looks at their case counts relative to Alberta’s adult population. On that basis, the authors show that Alberta had 34.7 income-support cases per 1,000 adults in 2025, compared with 36.6 per 1,000 in 2019.

The paper also separates the stable disability-related caseload from the more economically sensitive non-disability caseload. AISH remains fairly constant, while ETW and BFE rise and fall with labour-market conditions. By comparing Alberta with Ontario and British Columbia, the authors argue that Alberta’s normalized caseload is actually lower than those provinces’ equivalents. Their broader point is that caseload data should be interpreted in relation to population growth and economic conditions, not as raw evidence that programs are necessarily too generous.