Urban Exchange

Employment status, earnings and expenses: a study on Canada’s low-income families

A recently published study by Human Resources and Skills Development Canada (HRSDC) focuses its lens on the “working poor” – people aged 18 to 64 who are not full-time students, have worked for pay a minimum of 910 hours in the reference year, living in families whose total disposable income is below the Market Basket Measure low income threshold in that year for their community or community size and family configuration (www.hrsdc.gc.ca).

The Market Basket Measure (MBM) is used in this case as it takes into account not only the income of the individual or family, but also necessary expenses, taxes and deductions, child care, non-insured medical expenses, etc.

The study found that of all low-income families (according to the MBM) 31% of the families had main income earners who worked more than 910 hours per year (in other words, 31% of the low-income families fit HRSDC’s definition of “working poor.”) Only 14% of the families saw the main income earner work from 1-909 hours per year, while 38% were non-earners.

HRSDC also notes that the depth of poverty – how far below the MBM poverty line, and persistence of poverty – how often in a given timeframe the family stayed below the MBM poverty line are less severe for the “working poor” than for other low-income family types.

Please click here to check out the full study

Thank you to MonsterTrimble for the photo

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