The data are not applicable for the Yukon, Northwest Territories and Nunavut.

1. Income data from the 1996 and 2001 Censuses relate to the calendar year prior to the census year, i.e., 1995 and 2000 respectively.

Measures of low income known as low income cut-offs (LICOs) were first introduced in Canada in 1968 based on 1961 Census income data and 1959 family expenditure patterns. At that time, expenditure patterns indicated that Canadian families spent about 50% of their total income on food, shelter and clothing. It was arbitrarily estimated that families spending 70% or more of their income (20 percentage points more than the average) on these basic necessities would be in "straitened" circumstances. With this assumption, low income cut-off points were set for five different sizes of families. Subsequent to these initial cut-offs, revised low income cut-offs were established based on national family expenditure data from 1969, 1978, 1986 and 1992. These data indicated that Canadian families spent, on average, 42% in 1969, 38.5% in 1978, 36.2% in 1986 and 34.7% in 1992 of their total income on basic necessities. Since 1992, data from the expenditure survey have indicated that this proportion has remained fairly stable. By adding the original difference of 20 percentage points to the basic level of expenditure on necessities, new low income cut-offs were set at income levels differentiated by family size and degree of urbanization. Since 1992, these cut-offs have been updated yearly by changes in the consumer price index.

3. The incidence of low income is the proportion or percentage of economic families or unattached individuals in a given classification below the low income cut-offs. These incidence rates are calculated from unrounded estimates of economic families and unattached individuals 15 years of age and over.