Annual poverty snapshots aren’t enough – new analysis shows why Canada needs to track poverty over time
Poverty in Canada is not a single, fixed experience. While some people exit poverty relatively quickly, certain groups face stubbornly persistent low income that lasts years, according to a new policy brief released today by Maytree.
Beyond snapshots: The patterns of long-term poverty in Canada examines longitudinal data tracking tax filers from 2016 to 2022 and reveals clear patterns in who experiences persistent poverty and why. The analysis draws on a Statistics Canada study linking tax records and census data – the closest Canada has come to restoring longitudinal poverty analysis since the Survey of Labour and Income Dynamics ended in 2011.
“The research shows that poverty isn’t random, and it isn’t an individual failure,” says Tania Oliveira, policy advisor at Maytree and author of the brief. “It’s a predictable outcome of broken systems and reflects systemic discrimination, inadequate income supports, and precarious employment.”
Groups experience poverty persistence for different reasons – and therefore need targeted interventions, not one-size-fits-all policies.
For example, racialized people were twice as likely as non-racialized filers to experience persistent low income, largely because a much larger share entered poverty in the first place due to systemic barriers. In contrast, single seniors had lower overall poverty rates but struggled to exit once in poverty and frequently fell back in – pointing to inadequate senior income supports for those living alone.
“Annual snapshots tell us how many people are poor today, but not why they became poor or whether they’ll stay poor,” says Oliveira. “Longitudinal data reveals the patterns that annual data misses – and those patterns can point us toward the right solutions.”
The situation is urgent as Canada’s official poverty rate rose to 10.9 per cent in 2023 – higher than pre-pandemic levels (10.3 per cent in 2019) – and people in poverty are also in deeper poverty than in prior years. Income inequality hit a record high in the second quarter of 2025, and the National Advisory Council on Poverty warns Canada risks missing its 2030 poverty reduction target.
The policy brief calls for making longitudinal analysis a permanent part of Canada’s data toolkit and fast-tracking automatic tax filing to ensure the most marginalized people are not invisible in the data. If governments want to reduce persistent poverty, they need interventions that respond to different pathways into and out of poverty, not one-size-fits-all solutions.