The new Doug Ford government is cutting a planned 3 per cent welfare increase in half and scrapping a basic income pilot program the Progressive Conservatives promised to keep during the spring election campaign.

Social Services Minister Lisa MacLeod said Tuesday the increase scheduled by the defeated Liberal government will be reduced to 1.5 per cent while the PC administration embarks on a 100-day revamp of social assistance programs serving almost one million Ontarians.

“They spent money the province didn’t have,” MacLeod said of Kathleen Wynne’s Liberals, whose ill-fated budget projected a multibillion-dollar deficit this year.

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