Canada's national poverty rate for 2024 is projected to be 10.9%, unchanged compared with the official national poverty rate in 2023. This projection is in line with other economic indicators currently available for 2024. For example, although disposable income in 2024 for the lowest-income households (+3.6%) had relatively weak growth compared with a year earlier, it still kept pace with overall annual inflationary pressures (+2.4%) experienced over the same period.
The publication Provisional poverty estimates for 2024 provides an early indication of expected changes to the poverty rates, several months ahead of the publication of the official 2024 poverty rates in the spring of 2026.
Improvements for this release include using the 2023-base Market Basket Measure methodology to produce the provisional poverty estimates and incorporating quality indicators for the estimates. Research and development work will continue to further improve timeliness, as well as to enhance the methodology behind the provisional estimates in future releases.
Note to readers
Currently, the national provisional and official poverty rate estimates from the Canadian Income Survey include the provinces only.
Definitions
The Market Basket Measure is based on the cost of a specific basket of goods and services representing a modest, basic standard of living. It includes the costs of food, clothing and footwear, transportation, shelter, communication services, and other expenses for a reference family. These costs are compared with the disposable income of families to determine whether they fall below the poverty line. The poverty estimates, unless noted otherwise, are derived using the 2023-base methodology. For more information, please see The proposed methodology for the 2023-base Market Basket Measure of poverty .
The official poverty rate uses tax files from the most current reference year.
The provisional poverty rate uses a combination of tax files from the previous reference year and the most current reference year.
Contact information
For more information, or to enquire about the concepts, methods or data quality of this release, contact us (toll-free 1-800-263-1136; 514-283-8300; infostats@statcan.gc.ca) or Media Relations (statcan.mediahotline-ligneinfomedias.statcan@statcan.gc.ca).