Strong and adequate income security programs are critical towards ensuring that everyone in Canada can realize their human right to an adequate standard of living. About 2.8 million people across Canada live in poverty, unable to afford the basic necessities people need to live a life with dignity. Canada’s income security systems are rooted in dated ideas about the labour market, the cost of living, and who is deserving of support.
Our work on income security includes mapping current income security programs that are intended to promote opportunity and provide a social safety net, and understanding where those systems are working well, where they are under pressure, and how we can strengthen them so that everyone in Canada can realize their human right to an adequate standard of living. We use research to identify policy solutions and convene conversations to improve our social safety net.
Featured income security publications
Designed to fail: How Ontario’s income security policies create and perpetuate homelessness
Ontario’s own records show the province’s social assistance system is fuelling the homelessness crisis. This policy brief highlights how inadequate rates and punitive shelter benefit rules are driving people onto the streets.
Poverty segmentation: The challenge of the ‘working poor’
The report challenges the misconception that poverty doesn’t happen to people who work. The reality is that the working poor are the largest group among those in poverty. To accurately capture the realities of this segment, the report proposes an updated definition for the working poor.
Stubbornly high: Canada’s poverty reduction efforts have stalled
The latest data from Statistics Canada’s 2024 Canadian Income Survey shows Canada’s poverty reduction efforts have stalled. Canada is not on track to achieve its 2030 poverty reduction target of reaching 50 per cent below 2015 levels.
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