Yesterday, Justin Trudeau announced a new benefit, the Canada Emergency Student Benefit or CESB. This benefit is essentially the CERB (Canada Emergency Response Benefit) but for students. In this video I’m going to be breaking down what this benefit is, how much money we’re talking, how to know if you’re eligible or not, and how to apply. CERB GUIDE:
CERB BUDGETING GUIDE:
5 STEP FINANCIAL PLAN:
GOVERNMENT JOB BANK:
I know that eligibility criteria for these different benefits has been pretty confusing for a lot of people so I’ll do my best to lay out what situations allows you to be eligible for this benefit and I’ll also be talking about whether or not you can access both benefits, the CESB and CERB.
The Canada Emergency Student Benefit is a $9 Billion dollar aid package designed to provide economic relief to students who are facing difficulties because of the situation and who may have fallen through the cracks of something like the CERB.
Currently the plan is to give eligible students $1250 per month or $1750 if you’re caring for a dependent or have a disability, from May to August. So basically, they are going to be providing this payment for 4 months which spans the duration of summer. Many students rely on their summer jobs in order to sustain themselves when they head back to school so it is clear that this benefit is aimed at trying to provide income to students who can’t work a summer job this year.
In terms of eligibility, here’s how it currently stands. According to Justin Trudeau’s announcement and a following Toronto Star article, in order to be able to receive the CESB you have to either be
-Currently enrolled in post secondary school and planning to return in September
-Or You have graduated on or after December 2019
-Or you are planning on starting school in September
In my current understanding you are not eligible to apply for the CERB as well as the CESB. The CERB counts as income, and since that income is above the $1,000 threshold, that criteria alone would already disqualify you. Not only that, I don’t think the government would want people double dipping on the benefits. The CESB was designed specifically for students who don’t meet the criteria for the CERB.
So with that being said, if you are a student or someone who is eligible for the CERB, it probably makes sense to take that benefit over the CESB. You’ll be receiving $2,000 per month instead of the $1,250. This results in you taking home $3,000 more when all is said and done. If you’re not sure whether or not you’re eligible for the CERB check out my video on the Canada Emergency Response Benefit.
In terms of how to apply for the CESB the government has stated that the benefit is going to be delivered through the CRA so I would imagine that this is going to very similar to the CERB. This is good news because applying for the CERB is super easy and straightforward - I mean to the point where people are amazed at how easy it is to access the money.
So what’s most likely going to happen is that the government will create a portal online just like they did for the CERB that requires you to fill out some personal information, and just answer a few questions and that’s pretty much it. The only extra part that I wonder about is if they will want you to provide proof of enrolment in post secondary education.
Part of me thinks that they will just have to attest on your application that you meet the criteria just like they did for the CERB. The problem with asking for proof is that it would require someone to review it and would greatly slow down the whole process. I think that the government wants to continue to get aid out to the people who need it as fast as possible so I would guess that proof won’t be required but we’ll see what happens.
Other Helpful Programs
The first interesting one is the Canada Student Services Grant. This grant is designed to help students gain valuable work experience while helping their communities deal with COVID. Depending on the hours put in, students can receive up to $5,000 for volunteering their time. We don’t have any details yet on what would count as valid volunteering but it appears that the volunteering work you do will have to be specifically helping your community in some way revolving around the virus. It sounds like this will be hours based so the more hours you volunteer, the more of the grant you will be eligible to receive.
The second announcement that might interest you is the changes made to the Canada Summer Jobs program. The government has enacted measures that are supposed to create around 70,000 jobs for students this summer.The Job Bank is a pretty good database that you can use to search for summer jobs by filtering different criteria that you’re looking for.
0 Comments