Low income and inequality

This table provides statistics on year-over-year low-income transitions, including low income entry and exit rates, low income resistance, and low income immobility rates among Canadian taxfilers. The low income measure (LIM) is used to identify low income taxfilers. The LIM threshold is calculated as half of the median of the adjusted family after-tax income of all taxfilers and their family members. This table uses two different types of LIM: the variable LIM is based on the median total income re-calculated year, while the fixed LIM is based on the median total income in 2002 adjusted yearly by the all-items Consumer Price Index.

This table provides information on the number of years in low income over an eight-year period among Canadian taxfilers. The years in low-income may or may not be adjacent to each other. The low income measure (LIM) is used to identify low income taxfilers. The LIM threshold is calculated as half of the median of the adjusted family after-tax income of all taxfilers and their family members. This table uses two different types of LIM: the variable LIM is based on the median total income re-calculated each year, while the fixed LIM is based on the median total income in 2002 adjusted yearly by the all-items Consumer Price Index.

This table contains statistics that describe the duration of low income spells experienced by Canadian taxfilers in an eight-year period. A low income spell refers to a period in which a person stays in low income. It can last one year or several years consecutively. The length of the spell is referred to as its duration and is measured in years. The low income measure (LIM) is used to identify low income taxfilers. The LIM threshold is calculated as half of the median of the adjusted family after-tax income of all taxfilers and their family members. This table uses two different types of LIM: the variable LIM is based on the median total income re-calculated each year, while the fixed LIM is based on the median total income in 2002 adjusted yearly by the all-items Consumer Price Index.

As the first goal outlined in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, Canada and other UN member states have committed to end poverty in all its forms everywhere by 2030. This fact sheet provides an overview of indicators underlying the first Sustainable Development Goal in support of eradicating poverty, and the statistics and data sources used to monitor and report on this goal in Canada.

As the tenth goal outlined in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, Canada and other UN member states have committed to reduce inequalities within and among countries by 2030. This fact sheet provides an overview of indicators underlying the tenth Sustainable Development Goal in support of reduced inequalities, and the statistics and data sources used to monitor and report on this goal in Canada.

Percentage of the population aged 0 to 24 in low income, by age group and type of living arrangement. This table is included in Section A: A portrait of the school-age population: Low income of the Pan Canadian Education Indicators Program (PCEIP). PCEIP draws from a wide variety of data sources to provide information on the school-age population, elementary, secondary and postsecondary education, transitions, education finance and labour market outcomes. The program presents indicators for all of Canada, the provinces, the territories, as well as selected international comparisons and comparisons over time. PCEIP is an ongoing initiative of the Canadian Education Statistics Council, a partnership between Statistics Canada and the Council of Ministers of Education, Canada that provides a set of statistical measures on education systems in Canada.

Using data from the Longitudinal and International Study of Adults, this infographic shows the relationship between the income of adult Canadians and the income of their parents when they were growing up. Additionally, it highlights that families with higher incomes were also families where parents were more highly educated, while families with lower incomes were more likely to have a non-official language as their mother tongue or to be lone-parent families.

"Canada's Poverty Reduction Strategy" introduces the Official Poverty Line for Canada with a dashboard of 12 Indicators to track progress on poverty reduction for Canadians and their households. This infographic presents Canada's Official Poverty Rate and a snapshopt as of September 2020 for the following indicators: deep income poverty; unmet housing needs and chronic homelessness; unmet health needs; food insecurity; relative low income; bottom 40% income share; youth engagement; literacy and numeracy; median hourly wage; average poverty gap; asset resilience; and low income entry and exit rates.

"Canada's Poverty Reduction Strategy" introduces the Official Poverty Line for Canada with a dashboard of 12 Indicators to track progress on poverty reduction for Canadians and their households. This infographic presents trend information for Canada's Official Poverty Rate and the associated 12 indicators.

Market Basket Measure (MBM) thresholds for the reference family by MBM region and base year. Total thresholds as well as thresholds for the food, clothing, transportation, shelter and other expenses components are presented, in current and constant dollars, annual.

This table provides statistics on year-over-year low-income transitions, including low income entry and exit rates, low income resistance, and low income immobility rates among Canadian taxfilers. The low income measure (LIM) is used to identify low income taxfilers. The LIM threshold is calculated as half of the median of the adjusted family after-tax income of all taxfilers and their family members. This table uses two different types of LIM: the variable LIM is based on the median total income re-calculated year, while the fixed LIM is based on the median total income in 2002 adjusted yearly by the all-items Consumer Price Index.

This table provides information on the number of years in low income over an eight-year period among Canadian taxfilers. The years in low-income may or may not be adjacent to each other. The low income measure (LIM) is used to identify low income taxfilers. The LIM threshold is calculated as half of the median of the adjusted family after-tax income of all taxfilers and their family members. This table uses two different types of LIM: the variable LIM is based on the median total income re-calculated each year, while the fixed LIM is based on the median total income in 2002 adjusted yearly by the all-items Consumer Price Index.

This table contains statistics that describe the duration of low income spells experienced by Canadian taxfilers in an eight-year period. A low income spell refers to a period in which a person stays in low income. It can last one year or several years consecutively. The length of the spell is referred to as its duration and is measured in years. The low income measure (LIM) is used to identify low income taxfilers. The LIM threshold is calculated as half of the median of the adjusted family after-tax income of all taxfilers and their family members. This table uses two different types of LIM: the variable LIM is based on the median total income re-calculated each year, while the fixed LIM is based on the median total income in 2002 adjusted yearly by the all-items Consumer Price Index.

Percentage of the population aged 0 to 24 in low income, by age group and type of living arrangement. This table is included in Section A: A portrait of the school-age population: Low income of the Pan Canadian Education Indicators Program (PCEIP). PCEIP draws from a wide variety of data sources to provide information on the school-age population, elementary, secondary and postsecondary education, transitions, education finance and labour market outcomes. The program presents indicators for all of Canada, the provinces, the territories, as well as selected international comparisons and comparisons over time. PCEIP is an ongoing initiative of the Canadian Education Statistics Council, a partnership between Statistics Canada and the Council of Ministers of Education, Canada that provides a set of statistical measures on education systems in Canada.

Market Basket Measure (MBM) thresholds for the reference family by MBM region and base year. Total thresholds as well as thresholds for the food, clothing, transportation, shelter and other expenses components are presented, in current and constant dollars, annual.

Number of persons in low income, low income rate and average gap ratio by age, sex and economic family type, annual.

Low income statistics by age, sex and economic family type, annual.

Number of persons in low income, low income rate and average gap ratio by economic family type, annual.

Individuals; After-tax low income status of tax filers and dependants based on Census Family Low Income Measure (CFLIM-AT), by family type and family type composition (final T1 Family File; T1FF).

Families of tax filers; After-tax low income status of census families based on Census Family Low Income Measure (CFLIM-AT), by family type and family composition (final T1 Family File; T1FF).

As the first goal outlined in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, Canada and other UN member states have committed to end poverty in all its forms everywhere by 2030. This fact sheet provides an overview of indicators underlying the first Sustainable Development Goal in support of eradicating poverty, and the statistics and data sources used to monitor and report on this goal in Canada.

As the tenth goal outlined in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, Canada and other UN member states have committed to reduce inequalities within and among countries by 2030. This fact sheet provides an overview of indicators underlying the tenth Sustainable Development Goal in support of reduced inequalities, and the statistics and data sources used to monitor and report on this goal in Canada.

Using data from the Longitudinal and International Study of Adults, this infographic shows the relationship between the income of adult Canadians and the income of their parents when they were growing up. Additionally, it highlights that families with higher incomes were also families where parents were more highly educated, while families with lower incomes were more likely to have a non-official language as their mother tongue or to be lone-parent families.

"Canada's Poverty Reduction Strategy" introduces the Official Poverty Line for Canada with a dashboard of 12 Indicators to track progress on poverty reduction for Canadians and their households. This infographic presents Canada's Official Poverty Rate and a snapshopt as of September 2020 for the following indicators: deep income poverty; unmet housing needs and chronic homelessness; unmet health needs; food insecurity; relative low income; bottom 40% income share; youth engagement; literacy and numeracy; median hourly wage; average poverty gap; asset resilience; and low income entry and exit rates.

"Canada's Poverty Reduction Strategy" introduces the Official Poverty Line for Canada with a dashboard of 12 Indicators to track progress on poverty reduction for Canadians and their households. This infographic presents trend information for Canada's Official Poverty Rate and the associated 12 indicators.

The Government of Canada offers various financial incentives for parents to save for their children’s postsecondary education by contributing to a Registered Education Savings Plan (RESP). However, RESP participation rates tend to rise substantially with family income, and previous research has demonstrated that family wealth was the single most important reason for this trend (among factors that could be examined). This study explores whether differences in parental literacy, numeracy and financial literacy can further account for some of the gap in RESP participation by level of family income.

The economic lockdown to stop the spread of COVID-19 has led to steep declines in employment and hours worked for many Canadians. For workers in essential services, in jobs that can be done with proper physical distancing measures or in jobs that can be done from home, the likelihood of experiencing a work interruption during the pandemic is lower than for other workers. This article assesses how the feasibility of working from home varies across Canadian families. It also considers the implications of these differences for family earnings inequality.

Using the 2016 Census and the 2017 Aboriginal Peoples Survey, the article highlights key measures of economic well being (low income, food security, ability to deal with unexpected expenses) for First Nations people, Métis and Inuit living in urban areas.

From September 2018 through April 2019, Statistics Canada conducted a broad consultation on the Market Basket Measure (MBM). This paper will describe the consultations that took place, give highlights of what Statistics Canada heard, and describe next steps.

The User Guide for the Canadian Index of Multiple Deprivation (CIMD) outlines uses for the index, as well as it provides a brief description of the methodology behind the development of the index. This User Guide also provides instructions on how to use the index, and lists considerations when using the CIMD data.

The Canadian Index of Multiple Deprivation (CIMD) is an area-based index which used 2016 Census of Population microdata to measure four key dimensions of deprivation at the dissemination area (DA)-level: residential instability, economic dependency, situational vulnerability and ethno-cultural composition.

The CIMD allows for an understanding of inequalities in various measures of health and social well-being. While it is a geographically-based index of deprivation and marginalization, it can also be used as a proxy for an individual. The CIMD has the potential to be widely used by researchers on a variety of topics related to socio-economic research. Other uses for the index may include: policy planning and evaluation, or resource allocation.

This note discusses revised income estimates from the Survey of Labour and Income Dynamics (SLID). These revisions to the SLID estimates make it possible to compare results from the Canadian Income Survey (CIS) to earlier years. The revisions address the issue of methodology differences between SLID and CIS.

One key to poverty alleviation or eradication in the third world is reliable information on the poor and their location, so that interventions and assistance can be effectively targeted to the neediest people. Small area estimation is one statistical technique that is used to monitor poverty and to decide on aid allocation in pursuit of the Millennium Development Goals. Elbers, Lanjouw and Lanjouw (ELL) (2003) proposed a small area estimation methodology for income-based or expenditure-based poverty measures, which is implemented by the World Bank in its poverty mapping projects via the involvement of the central statistical agencies in many third world countries, including Cambodia, Lao PDR, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam, and is incorporated into the World Bank software program PovMap. In this paper, the ELL methodology which consists of first modeling survey data and then applying that model to census information is presented and discussed with strong emphasis on the first phase, i.e., the fitting of regression models and on the estimated standard errors at the second phase. Other regression model fitting procedures such as the General Survey Regression (GSR) (as described in Lohr (1999) Chapter 11) and those used in existing small area estimation techniques: Pseudo-Empirical Best Linear Unbiased Prediction (Pseudo-EBLUP) approach (You and Rao 2002) and Iterative Weighted Estimating Equation (IWEE) method (You, Rao and Kovacevic 2003) are presented and compared with the ELL modeling strategy. The most significant difference between the ELL method and the other techniques is in the theoretical underpinning of the ELL model fitting procedure. An example based on the Philippines Family Income and Expenditure Survey is presented to show the differences in both the parameter estimates and their corresponding standard errors, and in the variance components generated from the different methods and the discussion is extended to the effect of these on the estimated accuracy of the final small area estimates themselves. The need for sound estimation of variance components, as well as regression estimates and estimates of their standard errors for small area estimation of poverty is emphasized.

This report summarizes the comments received in response to a discussion paper on low income cut-offs released in January 2000.

This paper describes the issues around updating the low income cut-offs as well as Statistics Canada's findings and proposes a course of action.

Recently there has been extensive and recurring media coverage of Statistics Canada's low income cut-offs and their relationship to the measurement of poverty. At the heart of the debate is the use of the low income cut-offs as poverty lines even though Statistics Canada has clearly stated, since their publication began over 25 years ago, that they are not. The high profile recently given this issue has presented Statistics Canada with a welcome opportunity to restate its position on these issues, views which seem to have become lost in the debate.

This working presents the nature and uses of the geographic structure used by the Survey of Labour and Income Dynamics (SLID) and explains how statistics on low income are dependent on geographical concepts. It also describes the methodology for deriving geographic data for the Wave 1 (1993 reference year) SLID files, and improvements made for the Wave 2 (1994 reference year) release.