A Backgrounder on Poverty in Canada

Child poverty will also be discussed as the share of children living in poverty in Canada is higher than that of other industrialized countries such as Germany, the United Kingdom and France.2 Annex A summarizes the number and incidence of low-income Canadians according to the Low Income Cut-offs for 2014. [...] The poverty rate is the ratio of the number of people whose income falls below the poverty line; taken as half the median household income of the total population. [...] In the past, women were more likely to be living in low income than men, but today the percentage of women living in low income is about the same as that of men (Figure 2). [...] In 2014, 3.9% of seniors lived in low income, a rate that was significantly lower than that of children under the age of 18 (8.5%) and people aged 18–64 (10.0%).7 However, some seniors still have higher rates of low income compared to the general population. [...] For example, in the period between 2005 and 2010, only 1.5% of low-income Canadians lived in low income for up to 6 years based on the Low Income Cut-offs after tax.