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EI reform included a number of changes that can affect the benefit level and income of households in a variety of ways. These changes include:

• reducing the maximum period of benefits from 50 to 45 weeks (e.g., which can affect claimants in higher unemployment regions);
• switching from a weeks-based to an hours-based system (e.g., which can increase EI entitlement duration for claimants who work more than 35 hours per week);
• reducing maximum insurable earnings (which reduced the maximum weekly EI benefit from $465 to $413);
• introducing the minimum divisor rule (which links benefits more directly to earnings over a fixed period); and
• replacing the 60 percent low-income dependence rate with the Family Income Supplement.

Given the range and diversity of the impacts of EI reform on the labour force, it is useful to look at overall indicators of the well-being of individuals in periods of unemployment. One possible indicator is the level of consumer spending, or consumption, that individuals and their households are able to maintain one year after a job loss.

The Canadian Out-of-Employment Panel (COEP) survey contains information on the level of consumer spending that households maintain one year following a job loss. The analysis presented here focuses on:

• identifying which individuals are more likely to experience a decrease in household consumption one year after a job loss; and
• examining consumption patterns under pre-EI and post-EI reform periods.