The quarterly benefit amounts for Old Age Security (OAS) for July to September 2015 have been announced by Employment and Social Development Canada.
The maximum basic OAS pension benefit paid to people 65 years of age and older will increase by $1.13, up from $563.74 to $564.87 per month from July 1 to Sept. 30, 2015.
Read: CPP benefits rising in 2015
Payments under the Guaranteed Income Supplement (GIS), the Allowance and the Allowance for the Survivor will also increase by 0.2% for this quarter.
OAS benefit amounts are reviewed quarterly, and are revised as required to reflect increases in the cost of living, as measured by the consumer price index (CPI) set by Statistics Canada—the Old Age Security Act guarantees OAS benefits won’t be reduced, even when there is a decrease in the CPI.
Read: Number of OAS beneficiaries expected to jump
The basic OAS pension is paid to all persons aged 65 or over who meet legal status and residence requirements.
Benefits under the OAS program include the basic OAS pension, and GIS and Allowances. The GIS provides additional benefits to low-income pensioners who have little or no income aside from the basic pension, while the Allowances provide benefits to low-income Canadians aged 60 to 64 who are widowed, or who are the spouses or common-law partners of GIS recipients.
Read: Time to change the OAS indexing formula?
For 2014–2015, it was forecasted that about $43.8 billion in OAS benefits were provided to 5.5 million individuals.
This story originally appeared on our sister site, Advisor.ca.