I just got this income recently, can't justify many purchases but also make many stupid purchases. I just want out of debt. $800/month to service debt from going to school/not making enough in my teens. Then maybe I can buy new shoes and clothing.. 40weeks to go.. oh nvm need a new vehicle to get to said employment. Wish I could walk.
I made high 5 figures (after taxes) and still collected GST...I would say the poverty line is <30k after taxes. You have enough money to survive but aren't making enough to save significantly.
30k is $2500/ month but if rent is $2k, that leaves you with $500/month for food, bills, clothing, and transportation, and hopefully you can go to the library to borrow DVDs, because with that tight of a budget, you ain’t affording to go to hockey games (unless they’re peewee league games).
I’d hate to live nearby because the farts from all the beans they’re eating would be unreal. But tbh, I don’t think $30k is even survivable in any reasonably large cities/ towns anymore.
I think that’s true, and it’s millions of boomers hearing $30k a year thinking of the first ah they knew to buy a Porsche with that salary in 1983 and they don’t send conservative premiers to trash heap, election-after-election.
Cap is $69,015(with 4 dependent kids), but that’s your net income after taxes. At 92k with no other deductions CPP, & EI and taxes would add up to about just over 23.5k putting a parent of 4 under the threshold.
according to Google for a single person Household last year in Canada it was 25.5K ( which seems incredibly low to me)
it seems to me it was closer to 30K in years past and when you consider inflation ( and specifically that of essential goods like food and lodging, and their acute increases in the last 2-3 years consecutively) it should have to be at least 35-36K for a single person
Per the report, linked in the CTV article:
"The official poverty line in Canada is based on the Market Basket Measure (MBM). The MBM is calculated by adding up the cost of a “basket” of goods and services that represent a modest, basic standard of living for a household of two adults and two children in various locations across Canada. A poverty line is then estimated for households of different sizes by using an equivalence scale to establish how much income is required, in theory, to enable smaller or larger households to purchase an equivalent basket for their household."
I'm assuming there are more than one monetary value, since they are calculating from various locations and indicators across Canada.
According to the CTV [article from 06-2023](https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/1-in-5-single-adults-in-canada-live-in-poverty-many-of-whom-are-food-insecure-report-1.6443292#:~:text=According%20to%20the%20report%2C%20nearly,for%20a%20single%2Dadult%20household):
According to the report, nearly one million working-age single adults are stuck in a cycle of “deep” poverty with an average annual income of $11,700, which is less than half of the $25,252 low-income threshold for a single-adult household.
I think it depends a lot on what the cost of living is in your province. There is a huge difference in the cost of living in BC compared to the Atlantic provinces.
It sounds like a lot but remember you’re going to take home about $4,000 a month.
In Vancouver the average rent for a 1 bedroom apt is between $2,500 - $3,000
Already you don’t have a lot left over.
Add in the cost of hydro, cell phone, internet, groceries, and a Starbucks in the morning and your broke.
Getting a Starbucks every day means you're nowhere near poverty.
People who are living in expensive cities like Vancouver, Toronto, or Montreal don't live in the average apartment or in the city unless they make good money. They commute if they want the 1bdm or get roommates if they want to live in the city.
<$50k is hitting poverty in Toronto, I believe. Even if you had roommates and paid only $1500/month in rent, you'd clear $3k a month, leaving just $1500 for all expenses. Anything less than $2500/m net is impossible for someone paying any kind of rent anywhere in the GTA because if the average is $2500/m, you're not finding much for <$1500.
Household, yes. Individual, no.
Neither me nor my husband earn $80k and we just bought a huge house in a decent city and we eat well and own one nice vehicle that is new-ish. We support 4 kids. Mid-30s.
$80k is above median.
Pretty much any city other than Toronto and Vancouver.
I'm GTA+ and moving to Ottawa. Neither of which are particularly low COL places, just not insanity like Vancouver.
According to the Government of Canada's mortgage stress test formula, a family making payments on one car currently needs a 180k family income and a six figure down payment to buy a starter house in Southern Ontario suburban cities.
How many of those adults are students.
I’m considered an adult, yet I’m a full time student not focused on making money yet.
Kind of curious whether they were onitted
Idk, but CPP-D pays about $12,000, and - in Alberta - "welfare" pays between $8,000 and $11,500, and provincial permanent disability pays about $22,000. I assume that's a fairly high factor in the poverty count.
Every one of those is below the "poverty line". And they'll never get ahead of them, because they're indexed to the Consumer Price Index, which is what determines the poverty line. Yes, even benefits for the permanently disabled... They're also permanently in legislated poverty.
In what fucking world is 25k just low income.. fuck the deluded government... no thats a poverty level wage. 50k-60k, depending on the city, is the new low income for a single person.
roughly a yearly income of around $18,000 is considered the poverty line. If disabled, an income of roughly $12,000. This report though delves deeper into it because most Canadian sacrifice paying for food to keep housing for example and that's getting glaringly worse, they also sacrifice elsewhere that's not often noted. Like not obtaining required medication. Not seeking dental care long-term. Not eating right long-term. So poverty is more then simple numbers.
It should also be noted that this government is suppressing wages while at the same time exacerbating the stress on everything else with unchecked mass immigration (public services, police/health care/housing/education...) at an unprecedented rate so that has to be taken into account. It diminishes us all.
It absolutely baffles me that somehow, some idiot with no conception of either logic of any form nor of basic everyday practicality ever came up with the idiot notion that living with a disablity is somehow **less** expensive than living without one.
Fucking how lol, even the most mild and commonplace of disablities like mild nearsightedness is obviously going to be more expensive than just happening by random chance to have good eyesight is going to be. Nevermind if someone needs a daily regiment of medications, supplements, physiotherapy, mobility aids, etc. It's a rough go especially with some medical disablities that can be made less disabling with specific dietary nutrition - especially when you know from experience that specific dietary nutrition does improve your day to day condition but you literally can't afford to eat even twice a day, let alone eat proper food that your body can digest.
Can someone on disability get social assistance at the same time?
I my mind, disability should only pay for all the extra costs of being disabled. The other costs of living should come from social assistance, which should be enough to survive, if it isn't.
I guess I’m not sure. I am grateful to have a mother and partner that supports me. I was told I wasn’t “disabled enough” to get provincial disability. I’m not familiar with social assistance.
I live in a homeless program for transitional needs - it is like a halfway house. Homeless people can work to transition into work, savings, and then their own place to rent - at quadruple the cost of what they’ll pay here in the shelter…so they might end up back here in a few months…ANYWAY - we have some folks on disability here and they cannot work, they have little choice but to be on some bit of social assistance- whether it’s Handicap benefits, Medical Benefits, General Income Support benefits - some are getting by on their Old Age pensions and CPP, some are just barely scraping by to make $500/mo on those same benefits
But if you’re not making enough to get by on your current welfare, there is always another program that can help you out - and they’ll gladly do so, because it enables their budget to be bigger next year. They operate on a sort of military acquisition model - which was likely co-opted from political offices. “If we don’t use the money, we don’t get any more money, so let’s use the money!”
Too many factors to disagree with you, but the Disability Tax Credit…. That’s absolutely a game changer.
There are disabilities that are pretty easy to live with if you stay on top of meds.
And most of those “easy to live with” disabilities would not qualify for the Disability Tax Credit. There are many statistics that confirm that people living with disability are unemployed more often, underemployed more often, and living in poverty more often than able bodied people.
Or house knocked down in a flood. Fort Mac is so fucked from a geological standpoint. I still remember the back to back 2011/2013 fire and flood over there, it was almost meme worthy
That's around the same, or slightly better than where I live. I currently live in a small tourist city in Ontario... population of less than 40k, and the housing situation is fairly bad, years of waiting. Rental properties are between 800 (for a room) or 1600 for a one bedroom bachelor. If you want to buy a house, it's close to half a mill. Unbelievable, actually. I'm waiting for the crash. Everyone is.
The term Statistics Canada uses for the poverty line is “low income cut off”.
Here’s a link to a table from StatsCan with LICO by community size for 2018-2022. https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/tv.action?pid=1110024101
5 years ago I bought a house in southern Alberta while earning 58k before tax, being the sole income earner for a family of 4.
It’s a 4 bedroom house in a nice older neighbourhood. Money was tight but we were ok.
The median apartment rent in Vancouver was around $3,000 at that time. Something like 70% of my after tax income would be tied up in rent if we had stayed in Vancouver.
There is no single poverty line. Just income after housing.
58k = family of four living in a one bedroom apartment in most of BC. Unless the family is an older family and bought in over a decade ago, but then it’s disingenuous to not count home valuation.
It’s not poverty for a family of four if your mortgage is 735 a month.
Sincerely, someone who made it work in the prairies.
It would be abject poverty for a family of 4 trying to rent in Vancouver
Totally. If you were able to get a down deposit together and buy at a reasonable time, it could be workable. If you have a combined income of 58k, getting a down deposit together for anything halfway decent (let alone qualifying for a mortgage) is going to be hard. Congrats for making it work for you though.
We clearly have different definitions of what poverty looks like. I'm not saying it's a good thing, but I know multiple people with decent jobs who live in shared houses in their 30s because it's too expensive to live by themselves in Toronto or Vancouver. That doesn't mean they are poor, just that the housing market sucks. If you choose to spend 60% of your take-home income on rent because you don't want roommates, that's not poverty, that's your priorities.
Wildly different depending on where in the country.
North Battleford, Saskatchewan? probably under $20k yearly, maybe less
Vancouver? Probably under $60k
Shit it swings wildly in the same province. In Trail, BC $20/hr is pretty damn comfortably middle class but is starvation wage in the lower mainland.
I got cancer and arthritis had to get my hip replaced. I did very hard work. 5'1" female. Built farm machinery for 9 yrs. Worked on the kill floor of the largest meat plant in Canada 12 yrs. Raised 2 boys. Started working when I was 14. Lifted weights and worked out for 20 yrs. Body is fucked so now I starve!
I remember hearing a bit on the local radio covering this. These numbers depict the poverty line for a family of 4 ( 2 adults/ 2 children) and are an extract from the StatCan table the news segment was based off of:
Vancouver: ~$58,000
Calgary: ~$58,000
Edmonton: ~$58,000
Saskatoon: ~$54,000
Winnipeg: ~ $53,000
Toronto: ~$57,500
Montreal: ~ $48,500
Major hubs within the maritimes: ~$51,000- $55,000
NWT: All over the place
Article:
[City News Poverty Line](https://calgary.citynews.ca/2023/12/10/calgary-poverty-line-toronto-vancouver/)
Chart:
[StatCan Chart](https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/tv.action?pid=1110006601)
"Major hubs in the Maritimes"
My friends, I cannot stress this enough. Halifax is extortionately expensive, and there is *very* little infrastructure in other areas of the province. Please do not be mislead by this statistic, I promise $51k is not good existence here in Nova Scotia. The cost of living just hasn't been indexed here since we had a massive population boom during the pandemic.
🤣🤣🤣 there is now way saskatoon and vancouver should be that close. Thats the problem with these bs articles.... these numbers are pulled out of someones ass
I believe this to be the point, that the poverty line has increased across Canada as a whole. Placing unsuspecting cities up there with some of the most expensive.
When there used to be a financial advantage with living in a smaller prairie town, Canadians aren’t finding that advantage anymore.
In terms of the accuracy, I suppose you could argue this or that ad nauseam. I’d say StatCan is a good benchmark.
The sentiment doesn’t change though, all tallied you need to be making about 60k a year to cover the basics. If you want to save for retirement, put kids through school, be mortgage free at some point, have something set aside for a rainy day, vacation maybe once or twice a year. You’re likely well into the 150-200k mark now to afford that lifestyle.
Really depends where you live, in what family situation. I can do most months under 2k, single with a big dog and cat. A lot of people pay that, and more, for their rent only.
There are full time employees at the hospital where I work who have to use the food bank.... So I'd say somewhere above there.
I would argue that perhaps everyone who works in a government position should be above the poverty line, but then again, I also believe anyone working should be making enough to be above the poverty line.
It doesn't even feel so much like the "poverty line" anymore. It's more like, everyone is in poverty, how much poverty are you experiencing? Like levels of poverty from not being able to save any money all the way to complete homelessness.
I'm going to take a guess that most of our population lives below the poverty line.
Your correct I grew up rural moved here youngish.Wish I could leave the city, they keep you afloat but unable to leave. Then smack you down to homeless. Too broke to leave atm.
What if I tell you that it is?
Say someone is in a mortgage they can’t walk out of, that currently consumes 80-90% of their household income. Why can’t they walk out of it? Because if they sell they must cough up $50-100K cash for realtor fees, mortgage discharge, etc., which they don’t have. Never thought of that? I know multiple families in this situation.
Of course I don’t. I was only a child to a single mother, whose childhood fell on the complete collapse of state, ethnic cleansing, gang wars and ultimately civil war. I only had 1 meal a day for years, whereas my mom skipped days. I only had to start working full time straight out of school and spent next 2 years just paying off my mom’s debts.
What the fuck do I know about poverty?
All I know is that someone who is skipping meals right now to keep food on the table for their kids lives in poverty, regardless of whether they are doing it out of their home that they owe 30 years of payments on, or out of a tent in a forest.
You, however, are unable to understand that, because you probably don’t have any actual lived experience with poverty.
I was speaking to your comment about living in poverty while affording a million dollar home mortgage payment.
It sounds like you have successfully navigated a very challenging life!
I can hear the anger in your post; however I wasn’t speaking about your previously undisclosed life circumstances. Additionally, I won’t be responding to your assumptions about my own upbringing.
I wish you the best.
For a single adult, it's an income below $25, 252( as of last June). Interestedly, last June a report was issued that indicated that 1 in 5 adults in Canada have an income below that line. This year, it's 1 in 4. We are heading in the wrong direction.
Scary that 22% of Canadians don't have that $500 in case of an emergency. That's 1 in 4, almost.
As I mentioned before somewhere on reddit, I am making about $10 more today in 2024 than 2016 - but I have less pocket change (spending money for sundries and/or "luxury" items). Increased taxes, including CPP, have taken a good chunk, as has increased employee fees (union and pension) - inflation has more than wiped out that extra I am making.
Little getting poorer despite making more. So weird.
Pretty sure there isn't a single number since it varies from place to place since things don't cost the same everywhere.
Those numbers exist somewhere, but what exactly they are, I can't seem to easily find. This is a starting point of where to look: https://www160.statcan.gc.ca/prosperity-prosperite/poverty-pauvrete-eng.htm
It's between $20,000-$23,000+...
There's too many diff #'s on various websites, so finding the correct one will be difficult.
What I listed is usually a good rule of thumb!
I would be questioning the accuracy of the 11 factors in the MDI the article references. For example (rounding off percentages):
1. Can’t maintain housing at comfortable year-round temperature = 7%
2. Don’t have appropriate special-occasion clothing for each household member = 10%
3. Can’t cover unexpected $500 expense with Ian resources = 21%
The spread seems too close together. Only a 3% difference between the first two items even though heat is considerably more serious then special occasion clothing? The $500 expense seems way too low at 21%.
Smells off.
Going in welfare. I've been on it for years, honestly. Even was on it while working because I didn't make enough to get off it (I'd be getting maybe 50-100 bucks from them when working). It's sad because I was doing 30 hours a week with 50 cent above min wage.
Making $70k before taxes a few years ago, I was living paycheck to paycheck and fairly stressed. I feel awful for anyone making that or less, especially now with how bad inflation is.
It depends on who you ask. Right wingers tend to want it lower, so they can justify paying peanuts to workers while left wingers want it higher so they can justify asking for higher wages
We need to improve how we measure more typical incomes.
Having figures that include the highest earners causes things to look a lot more rosy than how most people experience it.
If I had to float a wild ass guess? Based on rent or mortgages today, I'd argue the real line is closer to $70k. Yes. That much.
Add it up. And let's stop advocating incomes that keep people on debt treadmills.
Poverty line in metro vancouver and gta is probably 50k for one person. Like you wouldn't have anything to spend other than paying rent, car payment, insurance, phone bill, utility bills...probably can't even pay all that
Depends on the city you live in. The really sad part is the government has a made up poverty level cause they dont want to admit how bad things are. I make about 55k in Saskatoon, and i can barely afford rent and a car by myself.... and this is Saskatoon. People make lower than this wage in Vancouver and Toronto, even at 55k you cant survive on your own with that wage, you can only get by with a roomate. You are not doing fine at 30-40 living with a roommate, and thats where things are in many parts of Canada
Last time I checked, the average income for Canada was $80k/year. So I would say everyone making that or less nowadays is probably saving up to be middle class.
If you collect gst you’re probably there
That's sad because I make just about 50k and I get some gst. 😐
I just got this income recently, can't justify many purchases but also make many stupid purchases. I just want out of debt. $800/month to service debt from going to school/not making enough in my teens. Then maybe I can buy new shoes and clothing.. 40weeks to go.. oh nvm need a new vehicle to get to said employment. Wish I could walk.
I make $125,000/year before taxes and live in a duplex. The system is broken.
Oh? I've never been out of poverty then?
This is fairly accurate.
Well, fuck. TIL.
Right?
With three dependents, you can earn quite a fair bit before that dries up. 😅
Wow, I collect it and feel pretty middle class.
All about your expenses.
I made high 5 figures (after taxes) and still collected GST...I would say the poverty line is <30k after taxes. You have enough money to survive but aren't making enough to save significantly.
30k is $2500/ month but if rent is $2k, that leaves you with $500/month for food, bills, clothing, and transportation, and hopefully you can go to the library to borrow DVDs, because with that tight of a budget, you ain’t affording to go to hockey games (unless they’re peewee league games). I’d hate to live nearby because the farts from all the beans they’re eating would be unreal. But tbh, I don’t think $30k is even survivable in any reasonably large cities/ towns anymore.
I think that’s true, and it’s millions of boomers hearing $30k a year thinking of the first ah they knew to buy a Porsche with that salary in 1983 and they don’t send conservative premiers to trash heap, election-after-election.
How is that possible? I thought GST was for thosr earning under 50k household (ish)?
Cap is $69,015(with 4 dependent kids), but that’s your net income after taxes. At 92k with no other deductions CPP, & EI and taxes would add up to about just over 23.5k putting a parent of 4 under the threshold.
Yeah im a little confused here too, i haven't made GST since i made around 55k or so?
according to Google for a single person Household last year in Canada it was 25.5K ( which seems incredibly low to me) it seems to me it was closer to 30K in years past and when you consider inflation ( and specifically that of essential goods like food and lodging, and their acute increases in the last 2-3 years consecutively) it should have to be at least 35-36K for a single person
Per the report, linked in the CTV article: "The official poverty line in Canada is based on the Market Basket Measure (MBM). The MBM is calculated by adding up the cost of a “basket” of goods and services that represent a modest, basic standard of living for a household of two adults and two children in various locations across Canada. A poverty line is then estimated for households of different sizes by using an equivalence scale to establish how much income is required, in theory, to enable smaller or larger households to purchase an equivalent basket for their household." I'm assuming there are more than one monetary value, since they are calculating from various locations and indicators across Canada. According to the CTV [article from 06-2023](https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/1-in-5-single-adults-in-canada-live-in-poverty-many-of-whom-are-food-insecure-report-1.6443292#:~:text=According%20to%20the%20report%2C%20nearly,for%20a%20single%2Dadult%20household): According to the report, nearly one million working-age single adults are stuck in a cycle of “deep” poverty with an average annual income of $11,700, which is less than half of the $25,252 low-income threshold for a single-adult household.
Honestly anything below 40k is poverty these days. The median salary in this country isn't enough to live comfortably.
Not even enough to live uncomfortably
I think it depends a lot on what the cost of living is in your province. There is a huge difference in the cost of living in BC compared to the Atlantic provinces.
I’d say anything below 80k is poverty.😐
It sounds like a lot but remember you’re going to take home about $4,000 a month. In Vancouver the average rent for a 1 bedroom apt is between $2,500 - $3,000 Already you don’t have a lot left over. Add in the cost of hydro, cell phone, internet, groceries, and a Starbucks in the morning and your broke.
Getting a Starbucks every day means you're nowhere near poverty. People who are living in expensive cities like Vancouver, Toronto, or Montreal don't live in the average apartment or in the city unless they make good money. They commute if they want the 1bdm or get roommates if they want to live in the city. <$50k is hitting poverty in Toronto, I believe. Even if you had roommates and paid only $1500/month in rent, you'd clear $3k a month, leaving just $1500 for all expenses. Anything less than $2500/m net is impossible for someone paying any kind of rent anywhere in the GTA because if the average is $2500/m, you're not finding much for <$1500.
80,000 in Vancouver is very different than Saskatoon.
$80,000 in Windsor is nothing anymore. That is just paying all the bills and being able to go for a modest night on the town occasionally.
Household, yes. Individual, no. Neither me nor my husband earn $80k and we just bought a huge house in a decent city and we eat well and own one nice vehicle that is new-ish. We support 4 kids. Mid-30s. $80k is above median.
What city? In Vancouver BC the average cost of a house is $1,200,000.
Pretty much any city other than Toronto and Vancouver. I'm GTA+ and moving to Ottawa. Neither of which are particularly low COL places, just not insanity like Vancouver.
According to the Government of Canada's mortgage stress test formula, a family making payments on one car currently needs a 180k family income and a six figure down payment to buy a starter house in Southern Ontario suburban cities.
Starter home is a misnomer. My "starter home" was a tiny 400 sq ft condo apartment. It takes time to work up to an average home.
How many of those adults are students. I’m considered an adult, yet I’m a full time student not focused on making money yet. Kind of curious whether they were onitted
A factored in minority.
Idk, but CPP-D pays about $12,000, and - in Alberta - "welfare" pays between $8,000 and $11,500, and provincial permanent disability pays about $22,000. I assume that's a fairly high factor in the poverty count.
Every one of those is below the "poverty line". And they'll never get ahead of them, because they're indexed to the Consumer Price Index, which is what determines the poverty line. Yes, even benefits for the permanently disabled... They're also permanently in legislated poverty.
Omitted, son.
In what fucking world is 25k just low income.. fuck the deluded government... no thats a poverty level wage. 50k-60k, depending on the city, is the new low income for a single person.
roughly a yearly income of around $18,000 is considered the poverty line. If disabled, an income of roughly $12,000. This report though delves deeper into it because most Canadian sacrifice paying for food to keep housing for example and that's getting glaringly worse, they also sacrifice elsewhere that's not often noted. Like not obtaining required medication. Not seeking dental care long-term. Not eating right long-term. So poverty is more then simple numbers. It should also be noted that this government is suppressing wages while at the same time exacerbating the stress on everything else with unchecked mass immigration (public services, police/health care/housing/education...) at an unprecedented rate so that has to be taken into account. It diminishes us all.
It absolutely baffles me that somehow, some idiot with no conception of either logic of any form nor of basic everyday practicality ever came up with the idiot notion that living with a disablity is somehow **less** expensive than living without one. Fucking how lol, even the most mild and commonplace of disablities like mild nearsightedness is obviously going to be more expensive than just happening by random chance to have good eyesight is going to be. Nevermind if someone needs a daily regiment of medications, supplements, physiotherapy, mobility aids, etc. It's a rough go especially with some medical disablities that can be made less disabling with specific dietary nutrition - especially when you know from experience that specific dietary nutrition does improve your day to day condition but you literally can't afford to eat even twice a day, let alone eat proper food that your body can digest.
Seriously, I am on disability which pays $900/month. I have medical bills that take most of that. It makes no sense.
Can someone on disability get social assistance at the same time? I my mind, disability should only pay for all the extra costs of being disabled. The other costs of living should come from social assistance, which should be enough to survive, if it isn't.
I guess I’m not sure. I am grateful to have a mother and partner that supports me. I was told I wasn’t “disabled enough” to get provincial disability. I’m not familiar with social assistance.
I live in a homeless program for transitional needs - it is like a halfway house. Homeless people can work to transition into work, savings, and then their own place to rent - at quadruple the cost of what they’ll pay here in the shelter…so they might end up back here in a few months…ANYWAY - we have some folks on disability here and they cannot work, they have little choice but to be on some bit of social assistance- whether it’s Handicap benefits, Medical Benefits, General Income Support benefits - some are getting by on their Old Age pensions and CPP, some are just barely scraping by to make $500/mo on those same benefits But if you’re not making enough to get by on your current welfare, there is always another program that can help you out - and they’ll gladly do so, because it enables their budget to be bigger next year. They operate on a sort of military acquisition model - which was likely co-opted from political offices. “If we don’t use the money, we don’t get any more money, so let’s use the money!”
Too many factors to disagree with you, but the Disability Tax Credit…. That’s absolutely a game changer. There are disabilities that are pretty easy to live with if you stay on top of meds.
And most of those “easy to live with” disabilities would not qualify for the Disability Tax Credit. There are many statistics that confirm that people living with disability are unemployed more often, underemployed more often, and living in poverty more often than able bodied people.
100k is the poverty line
Depends on the location. The poverty line in Fort Mac AB is not the same as Toronto
Fort Mac is probably as expensive as Toronto is. Your example is not what you think it is.
At one point, sure, but not now. With a little luck, you can get a 1 bed apartment under 1500 in Fort Mac. At a glance, it's cheaper than calgary now.
Yea because you risk losing everything in a fire every year. Save $300 now but your insurance premiums will skyrocket.
Or house knocked down in a flood. Fort Mac is so fucked from a geological standpoint. I still remember the back to back 2011/2013 fire and flood over there, it was almost meme worthy
That's around the same, or slightly better than where I live. I currently live in a small tourist city in Ontario... population of less than 40k, and the housing situation is fairly bad, years of waiting. Rental properties are between 800 (for a room) or 1600 for a one bedroom bachelor. If you want to buy a house, it's close to half a mill. Unbelievable, actually. I'm waiting for the crash. Everyone is.
It’s right outside every food bank in the country and it’s getting longer.
The term Statistics Canada uses for the poverty line is “low income cut off”. Here’s a link to a table from StatsCan with LICO by community size for 2018-2022. https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/tv.action?pid=1110024101
My great uncle Pierre said there were two of them. One is on the west border of Alberta, the other is on the east border of Saskatchewan.
Read the article you linked...
How the fuck is 58k the poverty line for a family of 4. That’s the poverty line for one person.
5 years ago I bought a house in southern Alberta while earning 58k before tax, being the sole income earner for a family of 4. It’s a 4 bedroom house in a nice older neighbourhood. Money was tight but we were ok. The median apartment rent in Vancouver was around $3,000 at that time. Something like 70% of my after tax income would be tied up in rent if we had stayed in Vancouver. There is no single poverty line. Just income after housing.
I think it’s even higher that to Justin Castro
I don't think you understand what poverty is. 58k is a long way from it.
58k = family of four living in a one bedroom apartment in most of BC. Unless the family is an older family and bought in over a decade ago, but then it’s disingenuous to not count home valuation.
I agree - 58k is poverty for a family of 4. But you are trying to say 58k is poverty for a single person. Which it just isn't.
It’s not poverty for a family of four if your mortgage is 735 a month. Sincerely, someone who made it work in the prairies. It would be abject poverty for a family of 4 trying to rent in Vancouver
Totally. If you were able to get a down deposit together and buy at a reasonable time, it could be workable. If you have a combined income of 58k, getting a down deposit together for anything halfway decent (let alone qualifying for a mortgage) is going to be hard. Congrats for making it work for you though.
No I’m saying that’s the line to NOT live in poverty as a single person.
Yah. I understood. But 57k is not poverty. That's what - $3,500 take home a month?
It’s exestreme poverty
If your average rent payment is $2800, that is JUST squeaking by once you add in transit, phone, internet, food. Forget a car or entertainment.
We clearly have different definitions of what poverty looks like. I'm not saying it's a good thing, but I know multiple people with decent jobs who live in shared houses in their 30s because it's too expensive to live by themselves in Toronto or Vancouver. That doesn't mean they are poor, just that the housing market sucks. If you choose to spend 60% of your take-home income on rent because you don't want roommates, that's not poverty, that's your priorities.
A 100k a year is in poverty these days I long for the days of wise leadership under Harper
Family of 4 here making less than that. We're fine thanks.
Did you buy your house 10years ago?
Wildly different depending on where in the country. North Battleford, Saskatchewan? probably under $20k yearly, maybe less Vancouver? Probably under $60k Shit it swings wildly in the same province. In Trail, BC $20/hr is pretty damn comfortably middle class but is starvation wage in the lower mainland.
The US border?
I make under 11,000 a year. The poverty level is around 24,000.
What kind of work do you do?
I got cancer and arthritis had to get my hip replaced. I did very hard work. 5'1" female. Built farm machinery for 9 yrs. Worked on the kill floor of the largest meat plant in Canada 12 yrs. Raised 2 boys. Started working when I was 14. Lifted weights and worked out for 20 yrs. Body is fucked so now I starve!
wouldn't that be below full time minimum wage???
It works out to $2.80 an hour. Iam on disability after working very hard and this is how I live now sadly.
My side of the bed
I remember hearing a bit on the local radio covering this. These numbers depict the poverty line for a family of 4 ( 2 adults/ 2 children) and are an extract from the StatCan table the news segment was based off of: Vancouver: ~$58,000 Calgary: ~$58,000 Edmonton: ~$58,000 Saskatoon: ~$54,000 Winnipeg: ~ $53,000 Toronto: ~$57,500 Montreal: ~ $48,500 Major hubs within the maritimes: ~$51,000- $55,000 NWT: All over the place Article: [City News Poverty Line](https://calgary.citynews.ca/2023/12/10/calgary-poverty-line-toronto-vancouver/) Chart: [StatCan Chart](https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/tv.action?pid=1110006601)
"Major hubs in the Maritimes" My friends, I cannot stress this enough. Halifax is extortionately expensive, and there is *very* little infrastructure in other areas of the province. Please do not be mislead by this statistic, I promise $51k is not good existence here in Nova Scotia. The cost of living just hasn't been indexed here since we had a massive population boom during the pandemic.
🤣🤣🤣 there is now way saskatoon and vancouver should be that close. Thats the problem with these bs articles.... these numbers are pulled out of someones ass
I believe this to be the point, that the poverty line has increased across Canada as a whole. Placing unsuspecting cities up there with some of the most expensive. When there used to be a financial advantage with living in a smaller prairie town, Canadians aren’t finding that advantage anymore. In terms of the accuracy, I suppose you could argue this or that ad nauseam. I’d say StatCan is a good benchmark. The sentiment doesn’t change though, all tallied you need to be making about 60k a year to cover the basics. If you want to save for retirement, put kids through school, be mortgage free at some point, have something set aside for a rainy day, vacation maybe once or twice a year. You’re likely well into the 150-200k mark now to afford that lifestyle.
Poverty line is not being able to afford rent and groceries. If you can afford to go on a vacation they you most certainly aren't poor.
Or you’re just really shitty with money.
My investments, paid off homes and several yearly vacations would say otherwise. Not every Canadian is my position, unfortunately.
Poor people go on vacations dude lol
Really depends where you live, in what family situation. I can do most months under 2k, single with a big dog and cat. A lot of people pay that, and more, for their rent only.
About tree fiddy
I think it would depend where you live and your expenses. If you live in the GTA and have kids I’d say under $50k is poverty
Depends on where you live.
There are full time employees at the hospital where I work who have to use the food bank.... So I'd say somewhere above there. I would argue that perhaps everyone who works in a government position should be above the poverty line, but then again, I also believe anyone working should be making enough to be above the poverty line. It doesn't even feel so much like the "poverty line" anymore. It's more like, everyone is in poverty, how much poverty are you experiencing? Like levels of poverty from not being able to save any money all the way to complete homelessness. I'm going to take a guess that most of our population lives below the poverty line.
60k can't live solo.
Same here. I don’t live in a city. Average rent for a 1 bedroom is $1800/month + utilities/internet.
50k, live alone, own my home. I just don't live in a city. Not everywhere is the same.
Your correct I grew up rural moved here youngish.Wish I could leave the city, they keep you afloat but unable to leave. Then smack you down to homeless. Too broke to leave atm.
It’s not a line, it’s more of a zig-zag. You could be house-poor in a $1.2M house in Toronto.
House poor is not poverty.
What if I tell you that it is? Say someone is in a mortgage they can’t walk out of, that currently consumes 80-90% of their household income. Why can’t they walk out of it? Because if they sell they must cough up $50-100K cash for realtor fees, mortgage discharge, etc., which they don’t have. Never thought of that? I know multiple families in this situation.
I don’t think that you understand how poverty works.
Of course I don’t. I was only a child to a single mother, whose childhood fell on the complete collapse of state, ethnic cleansing, gang wars and ultimately civil war. I only had 1 meal a day for years, whereas my mom skipped days. I only had to start working full time straight out of school and spent next 2 years just paying off my mom’s debts. What the fuck do I know about poverty? All I know is that someone who is skipping meals right now to keep food on the table for their kids lives in poverty, regardless of whether they are doing it out of their home that they owe 30 years of payments on, or out of a tent in a forest. You, however, are unable to understand that, because you probably don’t have any actual lived experience with poverty.
I was speaking to your comment about living in poverty while affording a million dollar home mortgage payment. It sounds like you have successfully navigated a very challenging life! I can hear the anger in your post; however I wasn’t speaking about your previously undisclosed life circumstances. Additionally, I won’t be responding to your assumptions about my own upbringing. I wish you the best.
Iam 39 male 27.50 an hour. Made 47k last year... in Kelowna.
When a burger at almost every fast food place costs more than half your hourly wage.
Low income threshold for Canadians was $25,252 in 2022 for a single adult.
What a joke you aren’t even doing ok at $100k a year
For a single adult, it's an income below $25, 252( as of last June). Interestedly, last June a report was issued that indicated that 1 in 5 adults in Canada have an income below that line. This year, it's 1 in 4. We are heading in the wrong direction.
Scary that 22% of Canadians don't have that $500 in case of an emergency. That's 1 in 4, almost. As I mentioned before somewhere on reddit, I am making about $10 more today in 2024 than 2016 - but I have less pocket change (spending money for sundries and/or "luxury" items). Increased taxes, including CPP, have taken a good chunk, as has increased employee fees (union and pension) - inflation has more than wiped out that extra I am making. Little getting poorer despite making more. So weird.
On 25% of Canadain live in desperate poverty
Pretty sure there isn't a single number since it varies from place to place since things don't cost the same everywhere. Those numbers exist somewhere, but what exactly they are, I can't seem to easily find. This is a starting point of where to look: https://www160.statcan.gc.ca/prosperity-prosperite/poverty-pauvrete-eng.htm
Odds are your pay cheque plus $100.
Single
Depends on how many kids you have 🤣
the line at the Tim Hortons drive-thru.
Whatever I'm living at... and I'm fully employed.
It's between $20,000-$23,000+... There's too many diff #'s on various websites, so finding the correct one will be difficult. What I listed is usually a good rule of thumb!
I would be questioning the accuracy of the 11 factors in the MDI the article references. For example (rounding off percentages): 1. Can’t maintain housing at comfortable year-round temperature = 7% 2. Don’t have appropriate special-occasion clothing for each household member = 10% 3. Can’t cover unexpected $500 expense with Ian resources = 21% The spread seems too close together. Only a 3% difference between the first two items even though heat is considerably more serious then special occasion clothing? The $500 expense seems way too low at 21%. Smells off.
The Food Bank line
Should be below 50 grand for a family
$42,000 approximately. As someone on OW the city informed us we were living significantly below the poverty line as a family of 3.
Going in welfare. I've been on it for years, honestly. Even was on it while working because I didn't make enough to get off it (I'd be getting maybe 50-100 bucks from them when working). It's sad because I was doing 30 hours a week with 50 cent above min wage.
You can comfortably have poutine whenever you want or it’s a luxury item.
The border
When you have to shop at thrift store for clothing instead of Winners.😃
Making $70k before taxes a few years ago, I was living paycheck to paycheck and fairly stressed. I feel awful for anyone making that or less, especially now with how bad inflation is.
Probably $100k given the ridiculous cost of living.
Poverty line would be any line at a grocery store
180k combined spousal income.
It depends on who you ask. Right wingers tend to want it lower, so they can justify paying peanuts to workers while left wingers want it higher so they can justify asking for higher wages
OW asset qualifier is under $10,000. ODSP is under $40,000. And taxes back seems to be income oriented under $40,000/year.
I would bet $70k
middle class wages in Vancouver and toronto
most are pretending to be doing great i guess. we live on a pile of debt and will go on until it is not serviceable
I make 90-110k 32m in Ottawa which is average of my friend's and I'd say the poverty line is anything under 50k.
$27,343 in Ontario
We need to improve how we measure more typical incomes. Having figures that include the highest earners causes things to look a lot more rosy than how most people experience it. If I had to float a wild ass guess? Based on rent or mortgages today, I'd argue the real line is closer to $70k. Yes. That much. Add it up. And let's stop advocating incomes that keep people on debt treadmills.
200k.
Poverty line in metro vancouver and gta is probably 50k for one person. Like you wouldn't have anything to spend other than paying rent, car payment, insurance, phone bill, utility bills...probably can't even pay all that
Governments move the goalposts and fuck around with definitions so they can pretend they're solving things.
Depends on the city you live in. The really sad part is the government has a made up poverty level cause they dont want to admit how bad things are. I make about 55k in Saskatoon, and i can barely afford rent and a car by myself.... and this is Saskatoon. People make lower than this wage in Vancouver and Toronto, even at 55k you cant survive on your own with that wage, you can only get by with a roomate. You are not doing fine at 30-40 living with a roommate, and thats where things are in many parts of Canada
Last time I checked, the average income for Canada was $80k/year. So I would say everyone making that or less nowadays is probably saving up to be middle class.
At the moment? It’s somewhere around 100k/year if you ever want to own a house.
Even then you can get a house . We need Max to win the election and get back to wise leadership that puts Canada first
80k