Census of Population

Low-income status of person, level

Low-income status refers to the income situation of the statistical unit in relation to a specific low-income line in a reference year. Statistical units with income that is below the low-income line are considered to be in low income.

Person refers to an individual and is the unit of analysis for most social statistics programs.

The data for this variable are reported using the following measurements:

• 'Low-income cut-offs, after-tax (LICO-AT)' refers to income thresholds, defined using 1992 expenditure data, below which economic families or persons not in economic families would likely have devoted a larger share of their after-tax income than average to the necessities of food, shelter and clothing. More specifically, the thresholds represented income levels at which these families or persons were expected to spend 20 percentage points or more of their after-tax income than average on food, shelter and clothing. These thresholds have been adjusted to current dollars using the all-items Consumer Price Index (CPI).
• 'Low-income cut-offs, before-tax (LICO-BT)' refers to income thresholds, defined using 1992 expenditure data, below which economic families or persons not in economic families would likely have devoted a larger share of their total income than average to the necessities of food, shelter and clothing. More specifically, the thresholds represented income levels at which these families or persons were expected to spend 20 percentage points or more of their total income than average on food, shelter and clothing. These thresholds have been adjusted to current dollars using the all-items Consumer Price Index (CPI).
• 'Low-income measure, after-tax (LIM-AT)' refers to a fixed percentage (50%) of median adjusted after-tax income of private households. The household after-tax income is adjusted by an equivalence scale to take economies of scale into account. This adjustment for different household sizes reflects the fact that a household's needs increase, but at a decreasing rate, as the number of members increases.
• 'Low-income measure, before-tax (LIM-BT)' refers to a fixed percentage (50%) of median adjusted total income of private households. The household total income is adjusted by an equivalence scale to take economies of scale into account. This adjustment for different household sizes reflects the fact that a household's needs increase, but at a decreasing rate, as the number of members increases.
• 'Market Basket Measure (MBM)' refers to the measure of low income based on the cost of a specific basket of goods and services representing a modest, basic standard of living developed by Employment and Social Development Canada (ESDC). The threshold represents the costs of specified qualities and quantities of food, clothing, footwear, transportation, a shelter and other expenses for a reference family of two adults and two children. The square root of economic family size is the equivalence scale used to adjust the MBM thresholds for other family sizes.