Statistics Canada Low Income Cut Off provides a number.
September 17th, 2009 | Published in Economics idea
Statistics Canada has a Low Income Cut Off (LICO) where people spend 20 per cent more of their income on food, shelter and clothing than average families do. There are technical details about tax and data sources, but the idea is simply that if too high of a proportion of your income is being spent on necessities, it becomes difficult to cope with adversity or to participate in community activities.
The numbers for 2005 are:
| Table 18 Low income before tax cut-offs (1992 base) for economic families and persons not in economic families, 2005 |
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|
Size of Area of Residence |
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| Family size |
Rural (farm and non-farm) |
Small urban regions |
30,000 to 99,999 |
100,000 to 499,999 |
500,000 or more |
| 1 |
14,303 |
16,273 |
17,784 |
17,895 |
20,778 |
| 2 |
17,807 |
20,257 |
22,139 |
22,276 |
25,867 |
| 3 |
21,891 |
24,904 |
27,217 |
27,386 |
31,801 |
| 4 |
26,579 |
30,238 |
33,046 |
33,251 |
38,610 |
| 5 |
30,145 |
34,295 |
37,480 |
37,711 |
43,791 |
| 6 |
33,999 |
38,679 |
42,271 |
42,533 |
49,389 |
| 7+ |
37,853 |
43,063 |
47,063 |
47,354 |
54,987 |
Source: Statistics Canada. Income Research Paper Series, Low Income Cut-offs for 2006 and Low Income Measures for 2005. Statistics Canada Catalogue no. 75F0002MIE, no. 004.
For reference, the average income for families with 2 or more people in Canada in 2005 was $67,500.
Is being above the LICO cut-off enough for people to live on? You would have to be pretty careful with your money, but you could get by. If all families could be kept above the LICO cut-off, though, I would be satisfied that people’s basic needs were being met.
