Poverty in British Columbia: Income Thresholds, Trends, Rates, and Depths of Poverty

Abstract

We present and assess extensive statistics regarding poverty rates and depths for Vancouver, B.C., and Canada. We show that not only are single adults in B.C. the most likely to experience poverty, but they also experience the deepest level of poverty. Both single adults and single parents who are younger (i.e., ages 18-24) are more likely to be in poverty and are deeper in poverty than single older persons (i.e., 65+) or those who live as couples. These poverty rates and depths of poverty remain high for single adults and single parents as they get older (i.e., ages 26-65), at which point the depth of poverty decreases. Lastly, poverty tends to be experienced at higher levels by women than by men when conditioning on family type. For these reasons, B.C. government will have to consider these groups in reforms focused on addressing poverty reduction targets.

‘Covering all the [welfare] basics’: a critical policy study of the Expert Panel on Basic Income report in British Columbia, Canada

“…At a time when lone working-age adults are experiencing profound financial hardship in BC and nationwide (Petit and Tedds, 2020b), the Report offers little in the way of a vision for transformative welfare reform that could substantially alter their (structurally and systemically generated) impoverishment. Rather, the authors conclude that a BI might be helpful for select groups only:…”