More than 20 per cent of Brampton, Ont. residents received CERB

TORONTO — The city of Brampton, Ont., had about 20.71 per cent of its residents receiving the Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB) last year.

An analysis of federal data by The Canadian Press shows that the city had on average 98,061 recipients during each four-week pay period for the pandemic aid.

Over its lifespan between late March and October of last year, the CERB paid out nearly $82 billion to 8.9 million people in Canada whose incomes crashed either because they saw their hours slashed or lost their jobs.

In the first four-week period, there were 166,570 people in the city receiving the CERB, and the figure fell from there.

There were 124,020 in the second period, 103,530 in the third, 88,930 in the fourth, 74,650 in the fifth, 68,660 in the sixth, and 60,070 in the final month before a trio of new benefits and a revamped employment insurance system replaced CERB.

The figures come from federal data The Canadian Press obtained under the Access to Information Act that provides the most detailed picture yet of where the aid went.

The data from Employment and Social Development Canada is broken down by the first three digits of postal codes, known as forward sortation areas (FSAs), to determine the number of active recipients at any time anywhere in the country.

The Canadian Press used population counts from the 2016 census to calculate what percentage of the population over age 15 in each forward sortation area received the CERB in any four-week pay period.

Some forward sortation areas in the data were created after the 2016 census and weren't included in the analysis.

Brampton is made up of the following FSAs: L6P, L6R, L6S, L6T, L6V, L6W, L6X, L6Y, L6Z, L7A.

This report was automatically generated by The Canadian Press Digital Data Desk and was first published Feb. 15, 2021.