Poverty Statistics: What’s
Available and Where to Find It
In
response to regular requests for poverty statistics and questions about
poverty, the Community Social Planning Council of Toronto assembled this
resource to assist communities.
While
there is no official poverty line in
There are two types of poverty measures:
2) Relative
Definitions of Poverty compare
total household income and spending patterns against the income and spending
patterns of the general population.
Households that spend a substantially higher proportion of their income
on food, clothing and shelter compared to the general population are considered
poor or low income.
Common
Measures of Absolute Poverty:
·
The Fraser
Institute/Sarlo poverty measure includes only the very barest of
necessities in its basket of goods and services, allowing for mere
subsistence.
·
Statistics
Canada’s Market Basket Measure (MBM) is a new measure introduced in
2003. The MBM takes into account a
broader range of essential goods and services than the Fraser Institute
measure. MBM thresholds take into
account community size and household composition. As the MBM is a new measure, thresholds for
various family types in Toronto have not been released yet.
Common Measures of Relative Poverty:
·
Statistics
Canada’s Low Income Cut-off (LICO) is one of the most widely used
measures of poverty. Households that
spend disproportionate amounts of their pre-tax income on food, clothing and
shelter – 20% above the average family – are considered low income. LICOs vary by household and population size.
·
2002
Before-Tax LICOs for Toronto
(from the National Council of Welfare, based on 2.2% inflation over 2001
LICOs):
è 1-person household = $19,256;
2-person = $24,069
è 3-person = $29,934;
4-person = $36,235
è 5-person = $40,505;
6-person = $44,775;
è 7-person = $49,043
· Statistics Canada’s Low Income Measure (LIM) is mostly used for comparisons between countries. Cut-off lines are set at one-half of the median income varying according to family size. Median income is the amount where half of all household incomes are below the line and half are above the line. LIMs are calculated for the whole country and therefore, don’t take into account the higher cost of living in cities.
·
Canada:
16.2% or 4,720,485 people
·
Ontario:
14.4% or 1,611,505 people
·
Toronto CMA:
16.7% or 771,535 people
(Toronto CMA includes all of Toronto, Peel and York, and parts of
Durham and Halton.)
2001 Child Poverty Rates from the Census
(based
on LICO)
·
Canada: 18.4% or 1,245,650 children
·
Ontario: 17.0% or 455,965 children
·
Toronto CMA:
19.9% or 218,720 children
Reference Materials:
Campaign 2000, 2003 Report Card on Child Poverty in Canada: http://www.campaign2000.ca/rc/index.html
2003 Report Card on Child Poverty in Ontario:
http://www.campaign2000.ca/rc/ONrc03/ONrcO3eng.pdf
2003 Report Card on Child Poverty in Toronto:
http://www.campaign2000.ca/rc/pdf/TorontoRC03.pdf
Canadian Council on Social Development, Defining and Re-defining
Poverty: A CCSD Perspective: http://ccsd.ca/pubs/2001/povertypp.htm
Andrew Mitchell,
Richard Shillington and Hindia Mohamoud, A New Measure of Poverty: www.socialplanningtoronto.org
under Research and Policy Updates
National Council of
Welfare, Fact Sheets and Publications:
Public Justice Research Centre, A Measure of Poverty in Canada by
Greg deGroot-Maggetti: www.cpj.ca/pjrc/research/02_poverty.pdf
Statistic’s Canada, Census 2001, Low Income Statistics:
http://www.statcan.ca/english/Pgdb/famili.htm#inc
Research Tip The Canadian Social Research Links website
is an excellent resource for a wide range of social research and statistics: www.canadiansocialresearch.net
Do you have a link
to add to this resource list? Please let
us know.
Contact: Beth
Wilson at bwilson@cspc.toronto.on.ca