Poverty rate holds steady at 11%, well above 2020 levels: StatCan

The country’s poverty rate barely budged in 2024, remaining well above 2020 levels with more than one in 10 Canadians qualifying as impoverished, according to Statistics Canada.

In a newly released survey, the agency found 11 per cent of Canadians — about 4.5 million people — lived in poverty in 2024 versus 11.1 per cent in 2023 and seven per cent in 2020.

Nunavut recorded the highest poverty rate at 31.7 per cent due to the steep cost of living in much of the North, followed by British Columbia at 13 per cent and Ontario at 12.5 per cent.

As in previous years, Quebec notched the lowest poverty rate at seven per cent.

Despite the rate holding steady, Alison Kemper, an associate professor at Toronto Metropolitan University’s Ted Rogers School of Management, said many Canadians find themselves increasingly stretched.

“Food is a problem. Housing is a problem. Now we’re seeing the price of fuel go completely crazy,” she said.

Kemper applauded the federal Liberals’ push to boost trade and stimulate the economy, but said greater efforts are needed to grow the housing stock for low- and middle-income Canadians.

The median after-tax income of Canadian families and single people sat at $75,500 in 2024, Statistics Canada said. When adjusted for inflation, the figure marked a slight improvement from $75,100 in 2023 but a 2.5 per cent decrease from $77,400 in 2020.

Families took in $108,900 on average — a nearly two per cent year-over-year boost — while “unattached” Canadians earned $41,000 on average, roughly the same as the year before.

Racialized groups, Indigenous peoples and Canadians living with disabilities continued to experience higher levels of poverty, the agency said.

Statistics Canada calculates the poverty rate based on the proportion of people who cannot afford the cost of a specific basket of goods and services in their community, after adjusting for family size.

Many Canadians have struggled to keep a lid on expenses since the COVID-19 pandemic, when inflation soared amid a glut of federal supports and aid packages to ease the effects of job losses and sector-wide shutdowns.

Since then, prices have refused to go down, leaving some in increasingly desperate circumstances.

“People who work have to go to food banks, which is quite extreme,” Kemper said.

“We’re also seeing young people in greater despair,” she said.

“More of them are living at home because of the housing costs being so high. Fewer of them going forward will be able to go to university because of cutbacks.”

In 2024 at least, food insecurity declined after three years on the rise.

About 24 per cent of Canadians, or some 9.8 million people, lived in households that reported some form of food insecurity, down by more than 360,000 from 2023, according to Statistics Canada.

The poverty rate for Canadians aged 65 or older also ticked down by half a percentage point to 5.4 per cent in 2024.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published, May 2, 2026.

Christopher Reynolds, The Canadian Press