Families and Poverty in Canada

Correlates and Coping Strategies of Families Experiencing Poverty in Canada

• Canada is a stratified society; some families experience poverty, while others do not.
• Definitions and meanings of poverty vary across time and place.
• A common misconception is that individuals are solely responsible for their financial difficulties.
• Many families, including the working poor, experience poverty despite working jobs at or below the poverty line.
• Certain social groups are more vulnerable to poverty than others.
• An increasing proportion of families, including middle-class families, are experiencing financial hardship.
• Studies link poverty to negative and long-term outcomes across generations of families.

Family Poverty: Key Figures

• In 2021, 7.3% of the Canadian population (2,717,615 people) lived in poverty.
• This included 621,235 persons in deep poverty (1.7%) and 2,096,390 in shallow poverty (5.7%).
• In 2024, the poverty rate is estimated at 7.4%.
• In 2019, unattached individuals had the highest poverty rate in Canada, with 26.2% living below the poverty line (with 30.7% for males and 35.6% for females).
• 17.8% of children in Canada live in poverty
• In 2022, 2.1 million people (11.5% of the population) lived in low-income families.
• One in five working-age adults lives below the poverty line.
• Working-age single adults represent half of those in deep poverty, earning an average of 11,700annually.Thelow−incomethresholdis11,700 annually. The low-income threshold is 11,700annually.Thelow−incomethresholdis25,252 for a single-adult household.

What Poverty Looks Like

• Poverty isn't just a lack of wealth; it's an unequal distribution of resources.
• Poverty in Canada is a significant social concern with hardship in everyday life.
• Poverty in Canada is the state or condition where a person or household lacks essential resources (financial or otherwise) to maintain a modest standard of living in their community.

Measuring Poverty

• Absolute poverty: a condition of mere physical survival.
• Market Basket Measure (MBM): a measure that StatsCan uses to meet basic needs (necessities, amenities, nutritious diet) while considering regional differences.
• Relative poverty: what is considered poor relative to contemporary social standards for normal and wealthy people.
• Low-Income Cut-Off (LICO) and Low-Income Measure (LIM): factors in the percentage of income spent on basic necessities, relative to changing incomes of the population.

Why Are Some Families Poorer Than Others?

• Socioeconomic factors (e.g., demographics, economic events, political events, government transfer payments) are crucial to understand the origins of poverty in systems and structures.
• Family structure, including age, gender, lone-parent families versus two or more income earners, and the feminization of poverty (single mothers and low income) play a role.

Poverty Later in Life

• Low income, family changes, and child poverty are significant factors, but transfer payments and subsidized day care may help.
• Is a guaranteed annual income the answer to lessening poverty? Family composition matters most for poverty prevention.

Economic Events

• Recessions, pandemics, housing shortages, food insecurity, and deficiencies in measuring poverty based on income alone impact families. There is no perfect connection between income and wealth.
• The "new working poor" is an emerging category of poverty.

Political Events

• Government transfer payments, neoliberal policies and risk cultures, and political agendas are relevant here.
• Problems with measuring poverty, fluctuations in poverty rates, and vulnerabilities among children, racialized communities, immigrants etc.

Coping With Poverty

• Community support services, extended family, in-kind contributions, and social networks, (including bartering systems) support low-income families.
• Food banks are commonplace, but institutionalized food banks exist with decreasing state aid.
• More and more families not relying on welfare, or job loss does not eliminate poverty from the population. The loss of welfare and programs for young families concurrent with increases in food bank usage.

Conclusion

• While low-income rates and reliance on social assistance decrease in recent years. Concerns persist for children, recent immigrants, Indigenous people, minorities, and lone-parent families.
• Loss of social assistance and programs, concurrent with increases in food bank use, are concerns.
• Structural changes are needed to prevent and combat poverty.

This quiz explores the various correlates and coping strategies of families experiencing poverty in Canada. It examines the definitions of poverty, the misconceptions surrounding it, and highlights the demographic groups most affected. Learn about statistics related to poverty in the Canadian context and its impact over generations.