No. 14 - The incidence of low income falling

One in five seniors in Canada lives in a low-income situation. In 1998, 711,000 Canadian seniors, 20% of the population aged 65 and over, had incomes below Statistics Canada's Low Income Cut-offs. The proportion of seniors with low incomes, however, has fallen sharply over the past decade and a half, dropping from 34% in 1980.

While the incidence of low income among seniors has fallen since the early 1980s, it has risen among both adults between the ages of 18 and 64 and children under age 18. As a result, seniors are currently as likely as children under age 18 to live in a low-income situation, although they are still somewhat more likely than adults under age 64 to have low incomes. Both situations, however, contrast sharply with those in the early 1980s, when seniors were more than twice as likely as both children and other adults to live in a low-income situation.

Percentage of the population with low income, 1980-1998

Source: Statistics Canada