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Incidence of low income among the population living in private households, by census metropolitan areas (1996 and 2001 Censuses)
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Household: Refers to a
person or a group of persons who occupy the same dwelling. The household
may consist of a family group (census family) with or without other
non-family persons; of two or more families sharing a dwelling; of a
group of unrelated persons; or of one person living alone. The population
living in private households excludes those people living
in institutions or other collective dwellings.
Census metropolitan area (CMA): a very large urban
area (known as the urban core) together with adjacent urban and rural
areas that have a high degree of social and economic integration with
the urban core. A CMA has an urban core population of at least 100,000,
based on the previous census. View definitions for 1996 Census Metropolitan Areas: St.
John's, Halifax,
Saint
John, Saguenay,
Québec,
Sherbrooke,
Trois-Rivières,
Montréal,
Ottawa–Gatineau
Ontario–Quebec, Ottawa-Gatineau
(Quebec part), Ottawa–Gatineau
(Ontario part), Kingston,
Oshawa,
Toronto,
Hamilton,
St.
Catharines–Niagara, Kitchener,
London,
Windsor,
Sudbury,
Thunder
Bay, Winnipeg,
Regina,
Saskatoon,
Calgary,
Edmonton,
Abbotsford,
Vancouver,
Victoria
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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.
2. 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.
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