Overview

Abstract (English)

There are many ways by which we can characterize the Canadian society. The economic well-being is one critical aspect that all Canadians care about. In a fair and caring society, we are concerned about the well-being of Canadians who are economically deprived. In Canada, three unique key low income thresholds have been adopted by various scholars to identify low income individuals prior to 1999. However, we do not know much about the short-run and chronic low income cases in the Canadian society after 1999. In this study, we present new findings about short-run and chronic low income in Canada from 1999 to 2007 under the three low income thresholds. We find that about 94% low income Canadians are in short-run low income but only about 6% of them are in chronic low income. Short-run low income in Canada is generally associated with those who are going through life-cycle transitions (such as young individuals, attached individuals, and lone parents), while chronic low income in Canada is generally associated with those high risk groups (such as lone mothers, individuals with less than high school education, those with disabilities, visible minorities, and recent immigrants).

Abstract (French)

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