First level - Old Age Security program
The Old Age Security (OAS) program provides a basic pension to almost everyone over 65 who has lived in Canada for at least ten years.
The OAS program also provides additional benefits for low-income seniors, benefits such as the Allowance, the Allowance for the survivor and the Guaranteed Income Supplement.
Quick Facts:
- Nearly one third of all seniors rely solely on this program for their retirement income.
- The Old Age Security pension will provide 3.9 million seniors with more than $19.5 billion in monthly benefits each year.
- Last year, the Guaranteed Income Supplement provided $5.2 billion in benefits to almost 1.4 million OAS pensioners with little or no income.
- Most people over 65 who have lived in Canada all of their adult life will receive an OAS pension of more than $5,100 this year (2002).
- The Allowance helped nearly 95,000 low-income Canadians last year.
Protection against inflation
All OAS benefits are indexed every 3 months to the Consumer Price Index, so that if the cost of living goes up, so does the amount of the benefit.
- First level - the Old Age Security program
- Second level - the Canada Pension Plan
- Third level - private savings