Low Income in Census Metropolitan Areas

This report, the first of a series that develops statistical measures to shed light on issues of importance for Canada's largest urban centres, paints a statistical portrait of urban income and low income in Canada. It does so by examining the changes in pre-tax family income within the nation's 27 biggest metropolitan areas between 1980 and 2000, based on census data.

It finds that median family income and low-income rates showed little change in most census metropolitan areas (CMAs) in the 1990s. This followed a decade of growth in median income and decline in low-income rates in most metropolitan areas in the 1980s.

It also finds that low-income rates within CMAs were higher among certain groups, making them disproportionately represented among the low-income population. Recent immigrants, Aboriginal people and members of lone-parent families tended to have higher low-income rates relative to the entire population in CMAs.

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