Executive Summary

Fighting For Our Future: Child and Family Poverty Report Card, Toronto 2024 draws on the latest available taxfiler data from 2022 to reveal record increases in child and family poverty in Toronto two years in a row. Between 2020 and 2022, Toronto’s child poverty rate increased from 16.8% to 25.3%—a staggering 8.5 percentage point increase. Between 2020 and 2021, Toronto’s child and poverty rate increased 3.8 percentage points from 16.8% to 20.6%, the highest amount on record for a single year in the City. That record was broken in the subsequent year. Between 2021 and 2022, Toronto’s child poverty rate increased by another 4.7 percentage points. 

The report also confirms Toronto’s unfortunate standing as the child poverty capital of Canada, with the highest rate of child poverty among large municipalities in 2022., The most recent statistics show 117,890 children in Toronto were living in poverty in 2022, up from 81,180 children in 2020, with poverty impacting an additional 36,710 children. 

Systemic inequities and structural barriers have meant some families are more likely to experience unequal labour market outcomes and financial insecurity. Child poverty rates have been increasing in every single ward since 2020, but they are uneven across Toronto’s geography. In nine Toronto wards, 30% or more of children and families are living in poverty. When looking at census tracts, smaller geographic areas than wards, many with the highest rates of child poverty are located in the inner suburbs, including the northwest area of the city and Scarborough, as well as within the downtown core. Forty census tracts had extremely high child and family poverty rates between 40% and 61%.

Poverty is also unequally distributed across Toronto’s sociodemographic communities. Report findings show that half of all children in one-parent families lived in poverty in 2022 and the depth of poverty among low-income families is increasing, particularly amongst one-parent families. Further analysis using 2021 Census data demonstrates the disproportionate impact of poverty on Indigenous, racialized, immigrant and newcomer children, as well as children from families who are non-permanent residents. 

As municipal, provincial, and federal governments prepare their 2025 budgets, to be released in the new year, the report authors and contributors call on all levels of government to commit to immediate and bold action in response to the alarming and rising rates of child poverty in Canada’s largest city. 

Key Findings

1. Child poverty rates in Toronto rose at record levels two years in a row. 
2. Toronto has the unfortunate distinction of being the child poverty capital of Canada.
3. Child poverty rates have been increasing in every single ward in Toronto since 2020.
4. Half of all children in one-parent families live in poverty, and the depth of child poverty is increasing.
5. Indigenous, racialized, immigrant and newcomer children, as well as children from non-permanent resident households have some of the highest rates of child poverty in Toronto.

1. Child poverty rates in Toronto rose at record levels two years in a row.

• Child and family poverty rates in Toronto increased by a staggering 8.5 percentage points between 2020 and 2022, from an historic low of 16.8% to 25.3%. In 2022, 117,890 children across the city were living in low-income families, up from 81,180 children two years earlier.
• Between 2020 and 2021, Toronto's child and poverty rate increased by 3.8 percentage points from 16.8% to 20.6%, the highest single-year increase on record for Toronto. Between 2021 and 2022, Toronto’s child poverty rate rose by 4.7 percentage points, from 20.6% in 2021 to 25.3% in 2022, breaking the previous year's record increase. 
• Toronto’s rapid rise in child poverty rates mirrors a similar increase in provincial and national rates.
• From 2015 to 2019, Toronto’s child poverty rate fell by 6.4 percentage points. This steady decline has been attributed to the Canada Child Benefit (CCB).   
• Then, between 2019 and 2020, Toronto’s child poverty rate fell by an additional 5.9 percentage points, to a record low of 16.8%. This unprecedented progress was attributed to the introduction of temporary pandemic benefits, including the Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB) and a one-time top-up to the CCB.  
• With the elimination of CERB in the fall of 2020, Toronto’s child poverty rate climbed substantially between 2020 and 2022, returning to 2017 levels.

2. Toronto has the unfortunate distinction of being the child poverty capital of Canada.

• At 25.3%, Toronto had the highest child and family poverty rate among cities and regional municipalities with populations over 500,000, consistent with previous reports. Winnipeg (23.8%) ranked second. Toronto’s rate is significantly higher than the national (18.1%) and Ontario provincial (19.5%) rates, as well as other GTHA municipalities including the City of Hamilton (20.4%), Peel Region (20.5%), York Region (18%), Durham Region (16.8%), and Halton Region (12.6%). Toronto’s rate was also higher than that of the major cities within the surrounding regional municipalities, including the City of Mississauga (22%) and the City of Brampton (20.1%).
• Toronto experienced the second largest increase in child poverty (+4.7 percentage points) among large municipalities between 2021 and 2022, with the City of Brampton at the top of the list with a 5.1 percentage point increase.

3.  Child poverty rates have been increasing in every single ward in Toronto since 2020.

• Child and family poverty rates rose in every single Toronto ward between 2020 and 2021  and again between 2021 and 2022. Scarborough North, Scarborough-Guildwood, and Scarborough-Agincourt had the highest increases in child poverty between 2021 and 2022.
• In nine Toronto wards, a troubling 30% or more of children and families lived in poverty in 2022. The city’s wards are also federal electoral districts. Toronto Centre (36.6%) and Scarborough-Guildwood (34.1%) were among the top 10 federal electoral districts with the highest rates of child poverty in the country.
• Forty census tracts had even higher child poverty rates, ranging from 40% to 61% in 2022.

4.  Half of all children in one-parent families live in poverty and the depth of child poverty is increasing.

• In 2022, 50.6% of Toronto children in one-parent families were living in poverty—three times the rate of children in couple families. The elimination of pandemic-related benefits disproportionately impacted one-parent families—most of whom are led by women+.
• Almost all children (98.7%) not in census families experienced poverty in 2022.
• Toronto’s Poverty Reduction Strategy was adopted in 2015. Since then, the depth of poverty among low-income families has increased considerably, with record level poverty gaps found in 2022. 
• On average, half of low-income one-parent families with two children were $15,495 or more below the poverty line in 2022, an increase of $9,103 from 2015 when the gap was $6,392. The poverty gap for this family type was 2.4 times larger in 2022 than in 2015. 
• The poverty gap doubled for low-income one parent families with one child and low-income couple families with two children, between 2015 and 2021. For low-income couple families with one child, the poverty gap was nearly 1.6 times larger in 2022 than in 2015.

5.  Indigenous, racialized, immigrant and newcomer children, as well as children from non-permanent resident households have some of the highest rates of child poverty in Toronto.

• Indigenous children in Toronto had a poverty rate of 20.4%, compared to 14.5% for non-Indigenous children. This gap is likely even larger as the Census undercounts Indigenous Peoples and hard-to-reach populations., 
• Racialized children (17.8%) had nearly double the poverty rate of non-racialized children (9.1%).
• Immigrant children had a poverty rate of 21% compared to 12.6% for non-immigrant children. Newcomer children had even higher poverty rates: 38.1% of children who immigrated with their families between 2020 and 2021 lived in low-income households.
• Children from non-permanent resident families had a poverty rate (42.6%), double that of immigrant children, and almost three and a half times that of non-immigrant children. 

Taking Action

In order to reverse the current trajectory of rising child and family poverty rates, all three levels of governments will need to commit to taking bold and swift action. These actions should be guided by a human rights-based and intersectional gender equity approach, ensure collaboration across government bodies, reflect the priorities of local communities, build upon the strengths of the community services sector, and incorporate robust monitoring and evaluation. A full list of recommendations is available at the end of this report, with a focus on key policy levers at the municipal level. 

The City of Toronto can make a significant difference in the lives of children and families living in poverty through three critical approaches:

• Implementing a rights-based approach to basic needs and affordability; 
• Ensuring livable incomes and inclusive economic development practices;
• Addressing systemic inequality by prioritizing key communities

Learn how you can take action on poverty reduction.

Read the full report.

Read the media release. 

Take Action: Tell Council We Need Poverty Reduction Now