Income Research Paper Series
Experimental estimates of family weekly income, January 2020 to March 2021

Introduction

This note describes updates to the experimental estimates of family weekly income previously described in March 2021. Readers are advised to refer to the previous releases for additional context, analysis and caveats.

What’s new in this version?

The scope of the estimate is expanded in terms of population and time frame.

• the period covered is extended to March 2021
• results are presented which break down results by province, family type, gender, visible minority, Indigenous status and landed immigrant status

The results continue to exclude families with members aged 65 and over.

Definitions of family weekly income

For the purposes of the July 2021 update of these experimental estimates, family weekly income is comprised of

• Estimated weekly wages and salaries
• Estimated self-employment income
• GST/HST credits
• Canada and provincial child benefits
• Employment insurance benefits
• Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB), Canada Emergency Student Benefit (CESB), Canada Recovery Benefit (CRB), Canada Recovery Sickness Benefit (CRSB) and Canada Recovery Caregiving Benefit (CRCB)^Note

Family weekly earnings is comprised of

• Estimated weekly wages and salaries
• Estimated self-employment income^Note

All income sources are expressed as weekly amounts.

Concepts used to define weekly low income status

For the July 2021 update of these experimental family weekly income estimates, two concepts are used to describe weekly low-income status. The share of the population with weekly family earnings below the provincial threshold appropriate to their family size is referred to as having “low weekly earnings” and the share of the population with weekly family income below the threshold appropriate to their family size is referred to as having “low weekly income”.^Note National figures are the total percentage of individuals below their respective provincial thresholds.

Values of median adjusted family weekly earnings and adjusted family weekly income of persons are also provided. Adjusted values are determined by dividing family earnings (or income) by the square root of family size, and assigning this value to all members of the family. The result is a single-person equivalent earnings or income measure that takes into account economies of scale associated with larger family sizes.

Data is disaggregated according to province, gender, family type and for population groups designated as visible minorities, by Indigenous identity and landed immigrant status.

Results

The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted the labor market with a degree of intensity and speed that was never seen before, resulting in the loss of over 3 million jobs in Canada in the month that followed^Note. Rapidly, extensive pandemic assistance benefits were put in place by the federal government to soften the economic burden of the crisis that confronted Canadian families.

Evidence suggests that COVID-19 benefits limited the impact of job and income losses for many Canadian families, particularly those in the middle to lower end of the income scale. The data also suggest that the overall rate of low-income, which rose sharply at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, stabilized and returned to pre-pandemic levels by August.

The rate of low-income stabilized below pre-pandemic levels

On an earnings basis a rapid increase in low-income rates took place beginning in March and peaked in April 2020. In the months that followed, the number of families in low-income stabilized and returned to levels comparable to the two months prior to the COVID-19 pandemic levels^Note.

On a family income basis, the share of Canadian families in low-income declined as early as March which demonstrated the rapid rollout of emergency benefits. By June, 14.8% of persons in families were below the low income threshold, down from 23.3% in February. Despite a slight upward trend through the second half of 2020, the share of persons in low-income families stabilized below pre-pandemic levels where it has remained through to March 2021.

Data table for Chart 1



Data table for Chart 1
Share of persons in families with income below provincial low-income threshold by selected income definitions, January 2020 to March 2021^{Data table for Chart 1 Note 1 Data table for Chart 1 Note 2}
Table summary
This table displays the results of Share of persons in families with income below provincial low-income threshold by selected income definitions Population 0 to 64 years old, Using weekly earnings and Using weekly income, calculated using percent units of measure (appearing as column headers).

	Population 0 to 64 years old
	Using weekly earnings	Using weekly incomeData table for Chart 1 Note 3
	percent
2020
Jan	28.7	23.4
Feb	28.4	23.3
Mar	33.1	19.5
Apr	39.3	19.8
May	33.4	15.2
Jun	29.2	14.8
Jul	28.6	16.8
Aug	28.0	16.3
Sep	26.8	16.4
Oct	27.7	18.3
Nov	27.4	18.7
Dec	26.9	17.7
2021
Jan	28.3	18.3
Feb	27.7	17.6
Mar	26.3	17.2
Note 1 Excludes persons living with seniors age 65 and up. Return to note 1 referrer Note 2 Results represent the percentage of persons below their respective provincial threshold. Return to note 2 referrer Note 3 Earnings plus GST/HST credits, child benefits, EI, emergency and recovery benefits. Return to note 3 referrer Source: Experimental weekly income estimates, July 2021.

Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the economic situation of immigrants

For this report, we use the Labour Force Survey definitions for immigrant status, grouping individuals into one of four groups: those born in Canada, very recent immigrants (those who obtained landed immigrant status 5 or less years ago), recent immigrants (those who obtained landed immigrant status between 5 and 10 years ago), and established immigrants (those who obtained landed immigrant status more than 10 years ago).

During the initial months of the pandemic, recent immigrants had the largest change in the share of persons with low weekly earnings, increasing from 30.9% in February 2020 to 50.6% in April 2020. The low-income rate for this group remained elevated for two months before decreasing to near pre-pandemic levels by July. By comparison, very recent immigrants, which originally had the largest share of persons below the low-income threshold, had its share increase to 46.5% in April and returned to pre-pandemic levels the following month. 

Expanding the low-income concept to adjusted family income, the introduction of the Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB) and other emergency programs minimized the differences between landed immigrants and persons born in Canada. In January 2020, low weekly income rate ranged between 21.2% and 33.8%. By May 2020, this range was reduced to between 15.6% and 17.3%. Following, the end of the CERB, a modest increase in low-income rate was seen among very recent immigrants while rates remained relatively stable among other groups.

Data table for Chart 2



Data table for Chart 2
Share of persons in families with earnings below provincial low-income threshold by immigration status, January 2020 to March 2021^{Data table for Chart 2 Note 1 Data table for Chart 2 Note 2}
Table summary
This table displays the results of Share of persons in families with earnings below provincial low-income threshold by immigration status Born in Canada, Immigrants, landed 5 or less years earlier, Immigrants, landed more than 10 years earlier and Immigrants, landed more than 5 to 10 years earlier, calculated using percent units of measure (appearing as column headers).

	Born in Canada	Immigrants, landed 5 or less years earlier	Immigrants, landed more than 10 years earlier	Immigrants, landed more than 5 to 10 years earlier
	percent
2020
Jan	26.0	40.6	25.2	31.2
Feb	25.1	39.4	26.3	30.9
Mar	29.8	40.1	33.3	40.1
Apr	35.6	46.5	41.1	50.6
May	29.5	39.0	36.8	48.4
Jun	25.7	33.4	32.2	37.1
Jul	25.3	33.8	30.4	33.1
Aug	24.7	37.0	29.2	33.7
Sep	23.4	35.2	28.3	33.1
Oct	24.2	40.7	29.1	32.0
Nov	24.5	34.6	28.8	26.9
Dec	23.6	35.7	28.1	31.7
2021
Jan	25.3	37.2	29.7	33.4
Feb	25.1	38.8	28.6	33.3
Mar	23.5	32.2	27.5	30.9
Note 1 Excludes persons living with seniors age 65 and up. Return to note 1 referrer Note 2 Results represent the percentage of persons below their respective provincial threshold. Return to note 2 referrer Source: Experimental weekly income estimates, July 2021.

Data table for Chart 3



Chart 3
Share of persons in families with income below provincial low-income threshold by immigration status, January 2020 to March 2021^{Chart 3 Note 1 Chart 3 Note 2}
Table summary
This table displays the results of Share of persons in families with income below provincial low-income threshold by immigration status Born in Canada, Immigrants, landed 5 or less years earlier, Immigrants, landed more than 10 years earlier and Immigrants, landed more than 5 to 10 years earlier, calculated using percent units of measure (appearing as column headers).

	Born in Canada	Immigrants, landed 5 or less years earlier	Immigrants, landed more than 10 years earlier	Immigrants, landed more than 5 to 10 years earlier
	percent
2020
Jan	22.0	33.8	21.2	24.8
Feb	21.4	33.0	22.2	24.7
Mar	18.9	23.3	17.9	18.4
Apr	19.0	24.7	17.6	21.1
May	15.6	17.3	15.8	16.0
Jun	14.8	15.5	13.9	11.0
Jul	16.2	18.9	15.4	15.2
Aug	15.4	18.9	15.3	16.7
Sep	15.8	17.8	15.3	17.1
Oct	17.3	24.1	18.1	17.9
Nov	17.6	23.8	19.5	16.8
Dec	16.5	23.3	17.3	17.8
2021
Jan	17.5	24.2	18.1	18.9
Feb	17.0	25.9	16.7	20.7
Mar	16.5	20.5	16.5	18.4
Note 1 Excludes families with seniors age 65 and up. Return to note 1 referrer Note 2 Results represent the percentage of persons below their respective provincial threshold. Return to note 2 referrer Source: Experimental weekly income estimates, July 2021.

Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on low-income rates of persons in visible minority groups

For people who identify as a member of a visible minority group, the economic situation based on family earnings has improved in the second half of 2020, a trend that continues into 2021. In May 2020, 41.1% of persons in a visible minority group lived in a family with low weekly earnings. By the end of the year, this share of persons had fallen to 32.1%. For the first three months of 2021, this rate decreased from 33.6% in January 2021 to 29.3% in March 2021. Meanwhile, persons not belonging to a visible minority group have also seen their economic situation improve during this same period, with their rate based on family earnings declining from 29.3% in May 2020 to 23.7% in March 2021. The rate differential between the two groups has also narrowed from a gap of 11.8 percentage points in May 2020 to a gap of 5.6 percentage points in March 2021.

Data table for Chart 4



Chart 4
Share of persons in families with income below provincial low-income threshold by visible minority status and selected income definitions, January 2020 to March 2021^{Chart 4 Note 1 Chart 4 Note 2 Chart 4 Note 3 Chart 4 Note 4}
Table summary
This table displays the results of Share of persons in families with income below provincial low-income threshold by visible minority status and selected income definitions Not a visible minority - using family earnings, Visible minority - using family earnings, Not a visible minority - using family income and Visible minority - using family income, calculated using percent units of measure (appearing as column headers).

	Not a visible minority - using family earnings	Visible minority - using family earnings	Not a visible minority - using family income	Visible minority - using family income
	percent
2020
Jan	Note ..: not available for a specific reference period	Note ..: not available for a specific reference period	Note ..: not available for a specific reference period	Note ..: not available for a specific reference period
Feb	Note ..: not available for a specific reference period	Note ..: not available for a specific reference period	Note ..: not available for a specific reference period	Note ..: not available for a specific reference period
Mar	Note ..: not available for a specific reference period	Note ..: not available for a specific reference period	Note ..: not available for a specific reference period	Note ..: not available for a specific reference period
Apr	Note ..: not available for a specific reference period	Note ..: not available for a specific reference period	Note ..: not available for a specific reference period	Note ..: not available for a specific reference period
May	29.3	41.1	15.8	16.2
Jun	25.5	35.5	15.1	14.1
Jul	25.2	33.7	16.5	16.7
Aug	24.1	34.8	15.4	18.0
Sep	23.1	33.3	15.9	17.8
Oct	23.8	34.1	17.4	20.1
Nov	24.5	31.2	17.8	21.0
Dec	23.6	32.1	16.5	20.5
2021
Jan	25.1	33.6	17.5	20.6
Feb	25.2	31.8	16.9	20.2
Mar	23.7	29.3	16.7	18.3
.. not available for a specific reference period Note 1 Excludes persons living with seniors age 65 and up. Return to note 1 referrer Note 2 Results represent the percentage of persons below their respective provincial threshold. Return to note 2 referrer Note 3 Family income includes earnings plus GST/HST credits, child benefits, EI, emergency and recovery benefits. Return to note 3 referrer Note 4 January to April are intentionally left blank as no data is available for this period. Return to note 4 referrer Source: Experimental weekly income estimates, July 2021.

Caveats

The estimates presented in this note make use of the data available at this time. The addition of families with self-employed members that was achieved in the previous release significantly improved population coverage, and this coverage was maintained in the current release. However, families with aged 65 or older are still excluded from this estimate.

While the CERB and EI benefits amounts are now derived entirely from administrative data, the other benefits listed in this note are still based on the responses provided by respondents. Furthermore, other sources of revenue, such as investment or interest income, and provincial social assistance, remain unaccounted for. As such, it is important to point out that the results here are preliminary and users are advised to use caution when interpreting the results.

Description of tables

Tables 1 to 4 provide a further breakdown of the situation by: province, gender, family type, visible minority and indigenous status.
For all tables, there are two populations targeted:

1. Persons aged 0 to 64 are available for province, gender and family type
2. Persons aged 15 to 64 are available for visible minority status, Indigenous identity and immigration status

From July 2020, a section was added to the LFS asking respondents which population groups they belonged to. Some respondent information was able to be carried back in time so that results for those groups could be presented here beginning in May. This proved to be the case for visible minorities as a whole, but less so for the more detailed groups of South Asian, Chinese and Black which were included for this study.

Table 1 and 2 can be used to compare the share of persons below the provincial low income threshold based on the income concept of family earnings (Table 1) and family income (Table 2).

Similarly, Tables 3 and 4 can be used to compare the adjusted median weekly family earnings (Table 3) and family income (Table 4).