This Assisted Living and Social Services (ALSS) dataset describes the monthly Income Support caseload in Alberta, including two client groups: those Expected to Work (ETW) and those who have Barriers to Full Employment (BFE). Income Support provides financial benefits to individuals and families who do not have the resources to meet their basic needs, like food, clothing, and shelter. The caseload is defined as the number of households categorized as ETW or BFE during a specific reporting period. Most commonly, this is reported as the average volume for a specific period (e.g., annually). The composition of the caseload is made up of single individuals, lone-parent families, couples with children and couples without children. In April 2018, a breakdown of the number of caseloads by SCSS Regions was added to provide greater context. NOTE: (1) - Due to a change in how region information is tracked within source systems, region caseloads have been updated as of January 2025 to include an additional category 'Unknown', reflecting new postal codes being introduced to the data record within source systems. This change has been retroactively applied to all past data. (2) - All regions report that the primary factor for reduced Income Support caseloads from April-2020 is due to Albertans accessing the federal government’s Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB).

This Seniors, Community and Social Services (SCSS) dataset describes the monthly Income Support caseload in Alberta, including two client groups: those Expected to Work (ETW) and those who have Barriers to Full Employment (BFE). Income Support provides financial benefits to individuals and families who do not have the resources to meet their basic needs, like food, clothing, and shelter