A newly released Statistics Canada study has identified which Canadians are most likely to have “consistent low income,” based on data over the course of seven years.
People in female lone-parent families (23 per cent), people without a high school diploma (21 per cent) and people who reported they “always had limitations in their daily activities” (18 per cent) were more at risk of consistent low income, compared with the overall population.
Those without a high school diploma were five times more likely to have persistent low income during the study period, which ran from 2016 to 2022.
In addition, recent immigrants were “more than twice as likely” to have persistent low income in the study period as non-immigrants, while tax filers in racialized groups were “twice as likely” to have persistent low income as non-racialized, non-Indigenous tax filers.
It was also found that nine per cent of Canadian tax filers aged 15 years and older experienced “persistent low income,” and that those in that low income category remained for at least four out of the seven years in the study period.
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However, among those who were experiencing low income in 2016, 30 per cent were able to exit low income the next year. Twenty per cent re-entered low income in 2018.
The National Advisory Council on Poverty issued a 2025 report that warned: “Our social safety net wasn’t designed to handle the current challenges and socio-economic pressures.”
“We’re living in unprecedented times. In recent years, we have witnessed and been faced with a global pandemic, ongoing racial tensions, evolving social justice movements, nearly record-high inflation, a housing crisis, an opioid crisis, climate change, global conflicts, social divisions, geopolitical tensions, threats to our sovereignty, and uncertainty surrounding tariffs and their potential economic impact on our country,” the report last year said.
“While our last report spoke of a sense of urgency and despair, this year, the Council’s conversations with people were laced with frustration.
“The rising poverty rates and the challenges that people shared with us across the country, make it clear to us that existing supports and benefits aren’t keeping pace with evolving and increasing needs.”
Income inequality also remains a challenge in Canada.
Statistics Canada reported last week that “the income gap increased in the third quarter of 2025 as lower income households were negatively affected by declining interest rates and self-employment income, while net saving worsened the most for middle income households due mainly to weak wage gains.”
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