Canada's Official Poverty Dashboard of Indicators: Trends, April 2024
Release date: April 26, 2024
Description: Canada's Official Poverty Dashboard of Indicators: Trends, April 2024
| Year | Rate |
|---|---|
| 2015 | 14.5 |
| 2016 | 12.9 |
| 2017 | 11.9 |
| 2018 | 11.2 |
| 2019 | 10.3 |
| 2020 | 6.4 |
| 2021 | 7.4 |
| 2022 | 9.9 |
Canada’s Poverty Reduction Strategy introduced the Official Poverty Line for Canada and a dashboard of 12 indicators to track progress on poverty reduction for Canadians and their households.
| Indicator | Most recent value |
Previous value |
Trend | Percentage change |
Reference periods |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Deep income poverty (Persons whose family disposable income is below 75% of Canada’s Official Poverty Line) |
5.0% | 3.6% | Up | +38.9% | 2021 to 2022 |
| Unmet housing needs and chronic homelessness |
|||||
| - Unmet housing needs | 10.1% | 12.7% | Down | -20.5% | 2016 to 2021 |
| Unmet health needs (Persons 15 years and older who reported not receiving health care when they felt they needed it) |
9.2% | 7.9% | Up | +16.5% | 2021 to 2022 |
| Food insecurity (Persons living in households that reported moderate or severe food insecurity) |
16.9% | 12.9% | Up | +31.0% | 2021 to 2022 |
| Relative low income (Persons living in households whose median after-tax income is below half the Canadian median after-tax income) |
11.9% | 10.6% | Up | +12.3% | 2021 to 2022 |
| Bottom 40 percent income share (Share of total after-tax income held by the population in the bottom 40% of the income distribution) |
21.1% | 21.8% | Down | -3.2% | 2021 to 2022 |
| Youth engagement (Persons aged 15 to 24 who were not in employment, education or training) |
9.0% | 9.6% | Down | -6.3% | 2022 to 2023 |
| Literacy and numeracy | |||||
| - Low literacy (15-year-olds) | 18.1% | 13.8% | Up | +31.2% | 2018 to 2022 |
| - Low numeracy (15-year-olds) | 21.6% | 16.3% | Up | +32.5% | 2018 to 2022 |
| Median hourly wage | |||||
| - All | $28.75 | $28.05 | Up | +2.5% | 2022 to 2023 |
| - Women | $26.44 | $25.98 | Up | +1.8% | 2022 to 2023 |
| - Men | $30.77 | $31.04 | Down | -0.9% | 2022 to 2023 |
| Average poverty gap (Average shortfall below Canada’s Official Poverty Line for those living in poverty, expressed as a percentage of the poverty line) |
32.4% | 31.6% | Up | +2.5% | 2021 to 2022 |
| Asset resilience (People who are able to cover unexpected expenses or reduced income, by drawing from assets [e.g., a bank account] for a period of three months) |
67.1% | 66.6% | Up | +0.8% | 2016 to 2019 |
| Low income entry and exit rates | |||||
| - Entry rate (All persons) | 5.5% | 3.4% | Up | +61.8% | 2019/2020 to 2020/2021 |
| - Exit rate (Persons in low income) | 29.1% | 39.7% | Down | -26.7% | 2019/2020 to 2020/2021 |
Notes:
- The indicators based on the Market Basket Measure (MBM) use the 2018 base.
- The concepts and dimensions of poverty are defined in detail in Opportunity for All – Canada's First Poverty Reduction Strategy.
- Date modified: