Poverty in Ontario: A province falling behind
Since 2020, poverty rates in Ontario are up sharply and have been climbing more rapidly than the average rate in Canada. The most recent data from the 2024 Canadian Income Survey shows Ontario trailing only British Columbia for the highest rate of poverty among the provinces as defined by the 2023-base Market Basket Measure (MBM), Canada’s Official Poverty Line (see Figure 1).
Figure 1: Poverty rates (MBM) in the provinces (2020 to 2024)
Source: Statistics Canada. Table 11-10-0135-01 Low income statistics by age, gender and economic family type.
With nearly two million Ontarians living in poverty in 2024, the province accounted for 45 per cent of all poverty in Canada but only 39 per cent of the population. Also of note is Toronto’s 2024 poverty rate: At 15.4 per cent, it was higher than that of any other major city, cementing its position as the poverty capital of Canada. Nearly one in four people living in poverty in Canada that year resided in Toronto.
This analysis mainly focuses on the period from 2020-2024 because this is the interval for which we have data using the 2023-base MBM. It should be noted, however, that poverty rates in Canada prior to 2020 were nearly as high as in 2024. Poverty dropped precipitously between 2019 and 2020 thanks to the introduction of temporary pandemic benefits, and the phase-out of these benefits explains much of the Canada-wide increase in poverty in recent years. It does not, however, explain the differences in provincial trajectories over that time.
This article explores some of what we know about poverty in Ontario from the available data – how it impacts different groups, how it persists over time, and the consequences it has for people’s lives. Though far from an exhaustive treatment, it offers a comprehensive overview for anyone seeking a deeper understanding of how poverty manifests in our province.
As we will see, the data suggests provincial policies are largely to blame for Ontario’s high rates of poverty and poor performance relative to other provinces. It is increasingly clear that Ontario’s 2020-2025 Poverty Reduction Strategy (PRS) failed to reduce poverty, and pressure is mounting for the government’s forthcoming PRS – anticipated to be tabled sometime in 2026 – to chart a new course.
Child poverty is up dramatically since 2020
As shown in Figure 2, in 2024, working-age Ontarians aged 18 to 64 faced the highest poverty rate at 14.0 per cent, with children under 18 not far behind at 13.2 per cent. Across all age categories, child poverty has increased at the fastest rate, more than doubling over the past four years. The rate of poverty among seniors in Ontario was comparatively low at 6.3 per cent and has increased less than that of other age groups since 2020.
Figure 2: Poverty rates (MBM) by age group in Ontario (2020 to 2024)
Source: Statistics Canada. Table 11-10-0135-01 Low income statistics by age, gender and economic family type.
Unattached singles continue to have the highest poverty rates
Consistent with the national trend, unattached individuals of working-age (defined as non-seniors not in economic families) in Ontario were the family type with the highest poverty rate every year between 2020 and 2024 (see Figure 3). In 2024, their poverty rate reached a shocking 38.4 per cent – almost triple Ontario’s overall poverty rate and higher than the national rate for this family type by about five percentage points. Moreover, singles aged 15-64 are a large group, making up more than one in three people living in poverty in Ontario in 2024.
Children in woman-led lone-parent families follow closely with a rate of 29.9 per cent, over twice the overall child poverty rate. Despite woman-led lone-parent families making up just 13.6 per cent of all families in Ontario according to the 2021 Census, children in these families represented about 27 per cent of all children living in poverty in Ontario in 2024.
These struggles highlight why the Ontario government should prioritize unattached singles and people living in woman-led lone-parent families when devising poverty reduction targets and measures.
Figure 3: Poverty rates (MBM) by selected economic family types in Ontario (2020 to 2024)
Source: Statistics Canada. Table 11-10-0135-01 Low income statistics by age, gender and economic family type.
Being in an economic family with more than one adult tends to provide a degree of protection against poverty, as income and expenses can be shared. For instance, 12.2 per cent of Ontario seniors not in an economic family lived in poverty in 2024, compared to only 4 per cent of those in economic families. Similarly, the poverty rates for children in couple families and working-age adults in economic families are consistently lower than the overall provincial poverty rate. Nevertheless, the poverty rates for these families were still higher in Ontario than the Canadian average.
Significant disparities in poverty rates persist among equity-deserving populations
The escalating poverty rate in Ontario is felt more acutely in racialized communities. (Note that Statistics Canada reports data on Indigenous people separately.) As shown in Figure 4, in 2024, the poverty rate for racialized people was 17.1 per cent compared to 9.4 per cent for the rest of the Ontario population, a 7.7 percentage point difference. This gap has grown substantially since 2020 and has been increasing at a quicker pace and by a larger amount in Ontario than across Canada.
Figure 4: Poverty rates (MBM) by racialized and non-racialized populations in Ontario and Canada (2020 to 2024)
Source: Statistics Canada. Table 11-10-0093-01. Poverty and low-income statistics by selected demographic characteristics.
Moreover, as shown in Figure 5, the poverty rate among Indigenous people in Ontario (excluding those on reserve) has been consistently higher than that of the non-Indigenous population. In 2024, 16.5 per cent of Indigenous people were living in poverty compared to 12.4 per cent of non-Indigenous people, a 4.1 percentage point difference.
Figure 5: Poverty rates (MBM) for Indigenous and non-Indigenous populations in Ontario (2020 to 2024)
Source: Statistics Canada. Table 11-10-0093-01 Poverty and low-income statistics by selected demographic characteristics.
Ontarians with disabilities are also more likely to live in poverty. As shown in Figure 6, in 2024, the poverty rate for people with disabilities aged 15 years and older in Ontario was 13.2 per cent, which was 3.8 percentage points higher than the rate for people without disabilities (9.4 per cent).
Since 2020, the disability poverty rate in Ontario has been higher than the Canadian average. In every year since 2021, Ontario has had the fourth-highest rate in Canada, behind Manitoba, British Columbia, and Saskatchewan.
Furthermore, people with disabilities make up a large proportion of those living in poverty in Ontario. In 2024, more than one in three Ontarians living in poverty had a disability, demonstrating that addressing disability poverty is critical to bringing down overall poverty rates.
Figure 6: Poverty rates (MBM) among persons with and without disabilities in Ontario (2020 to 2024)
Source: Canadian Income Survey, Statistics Canada (custom tabulation).
It is also important to note that the Market Basket Measure does not account for the full cost of living with a disability, so these figures likely underestimate the economic hardship disabled people face. For example, many people with disabilities report unmet needs in areas such as medication, health care therapies, and assistive aids due to prohibitive costs.
Addressing poverty among equity-deserving populations requires targeted interventions, including addressing the underlying causes of historical and ongoing systemic discrimination. This reality is conspicuously absent from the Ontario government’s approach to poverty reduction. As previous Maytree analysis shows, even in Ontario’s integrated employment services system – the centerpiece of the province’s poverty reduction efforts – people with more complex needs are having a harder time accessing the support they need, leading to worse outcomes.
What it would take to lift Ontarians out of poverty
The aggregate MBM deficit is a concept used by Statistics Canada that measures the total absolute difference between the cost of the MBM basket and the disposable income of families below the MBM. When aggregated provincially, it represents the dollar amount needed to bring every Ontario family’s income up to the MBM, effectively eliminating income poverty. The deficit is naturally the highest in Ontario, as the most populous province. However, the disparity between what Ontario families have and what they need to reach the poverty line has been rising at a faster rate compared to other provinces.
As shown in Figure 7, between 2019 and 2020, the MBM deficit dropped by 26 per cent in Ontario. This was due to the introduction of a range of income supports for individuals and families to help them cope with the disruptions of the COVID-19 pandemic. The drop in the deficit during this period proves that strengthening the social safety net is an effective poverty reduction tool.
Unsurprisingly, the deficit began climbing back up to pre-pandemic levels after 2021 as governments pulled back on income supports, undoing the gains made in poverty reduction. Returning to pre-pandemic levels was not inevitable; it was a policy decision.
Based on the MBM deficit measure, it would have taken at least $18 billion in additional income support to end poverty in Ontario in 2024, not including administrative costs. For comparison, this is about 8.5 per cent of the $212 billion the province spent on program expenses in the 2024-25 fiscal year.
Figure 7: Aggregate MBM deficits ($000s) (2018 base and 2023 base) in the provinces (2015 to 2024)
Source: Statistics Canada. Table 11-10-0103-01 Aggregate and average components of after-tax income according to the Market Basket Measure threshold, by after-tax income decile (x 1,000).
Poverty in context: Low-income dynamics in Ontario
Understanding annual poverty rates is just one piece of the puzzle. It is also important to assess how long people stay in poverty and what sort of factors influence these trends to determine the most impactful policy responses to address them.
This is because those who experience persistent poverty often have worse health outcomes, are more likely to rely on social assistance, struggle to secure a stable job, and have difficulty finding affordable housing.
A recent Maytree policy brief examined the duration and persistence of low-income status among disaggregated populations of tax filers nationwide to understand persistent poverty trends. Here we use data from Statistics Canada’s Longitudinal Administrative Databank to examine these same dynamics within Ontario.
Most people experience only temporary low-income spells, but a significant number of Ontarians have persistently low incomes
To measure low-income persistence, Statistics Canada tracks the number of years tax filers spent having incomes below the low-income measure (LIM) over an eight-year period. While there is no settled definition for persistent poverty, a common approach is to define persistence as spending four or more of these years below the low-income threshold.
As shown in Figure 8, while most tax filers spent one or two years in low income, there is a considerable percentage (3.1 per cent between 2016 and 2023) who spent all eight years in low income. In addition, a total of 11 per cent of Ontario tax filers spent four years or more in low income between 2016 and 2023, meaning they were living in persistent low income.
Figure 8: Number of years tax filers spent in low income in Ontario from 2016 to 2023
Source: Statistics Canada. Table 11-10-0025-01 Low income persistence of tax filers in Canada.
Note: Two types of low-income measure (LIM) thresholds are used by Statistics Canada in this table. The variable LIM threshold is re-estimated annually based on the median total income for that year, while the fixed LIM threshold is based on median income from 2002 adjusted by the Consumer Price Index to account for inflation in subsequent years. For Figures 8 to 11, we only use the variable low-income measure (LIM).
The likelihood of escaping poverty declines sharply as a person spends more years in poverty
Another concept worth examining is the low-income exit rate, which tracks the proportion of tax filers who were in low income in one year and managed to exit in a future year. It is the conditional probability that a poverty spell will last for the given duration, conditional on it not having terminated earlier.
Figure 9 shows that between 2016 and 2023, the exit rate for those spending six years in low income (12.9 per cent) was much lower than for those spending only one year in low income (46.3 per cent). This is true across all five of the periods examined.
Figure 9: Low-income exit rates by duration of poverty spell in Ontario (2012-2019 to 2016-2023)
Source: Statistics Canada Table 11-10-0026-01 Low income duration of tax filers in Canada.
Unattached singles and lone-parent families are most likely to enter poverty and less likely to exit
In contrast with the exit rate, the low-income entry rate tracks the proportion of tax filers who were not in low income in one year and fell into low income the next.
Figure 10 shows that, across each two-year period examined by Statistics Canada, unattached singles and persons in lone-parent families have been falling below the low-income line at higher rates than other households. The most recent data shows people in lone-parent families were 3.3 percentage points more likely to enter low income than persons in couple families with children.
In addition, people in lone-parent families and unattached singles are exiting low income at much lower rates compared to other households (see Figure 11). From 2022 to 2023, couple families were the most likely to exit low income, while the exit rate for unattached singles was a full 12.7 percentage points lower.
Figure 10: Low-income entry rates by census family type in Ontario (2017-2018 to 2022-2023)
Source: Statistics Canada. Table 11-10-0024-01 Low income entry and exit rates of tax filers in Canada.
Note: The Longitudinal Administrative Databank defines households based on census families. Earlier figures used the economic family to define household types. In Figures 10 and 11, unattached singles refer to tax filers not in census families; persons in lone-parent families refer to tax filers living in single-parent families; couple families with children refer to tax filers living in couple families with at least one child under 17; and couple families refer to tax filers living in couple families.
Figure 11: Low-income exit rates by census family type in Ontario (2017-2018 to 2022-2023)
Source: Statistics Canada. Table 11-10-0024-01 Low income entry and exit rates of tax filers in Canada.
Income mobility in Ontario has been on the decline
A 2019 report by the Financial Accountability Office (FAO) finds that Ontarians’ incomes are growing at a slower rate than in the rest of the provinces, and this is especially true of low-income people. This trend is increasingly leaving people stuck in low income.
Over the past three decades, income immobility – the share of working-age Ontarians who remained in the same income quintile over a five-year period – increased by more than 10 percentage points for those in the bottom two income quintiles. The increased “stickiness” of the income distribution and rather steady entry rates suggest that while fewer people are newly falling below the poverty line, those who already have are staying there for longer.
The consequences of poverty
As the cost of living has risen in the form of more expensive food and rent, low-income people are increasingly forced to make difficult decisions with the limited resources they have. According to Food Bank Canada’s 2026 Poverty Report Card, 71 per cent of people surveyed in Ontario viewed government support as insufficient to keep up with their needs.
In addition, a recent report from Feed Ontario found that, among households accessing food banks, people who receive social assistance cited the cost of food and housing as their main sources of financial stress. The report documents how many Ontarians resort to skipping meals, using food banks, foregoing medication, and living in inadequate and unaffordable housing.
Food insecurity rates in Ontario are higher than the Canadian average
Figure 12 shows that in 2024, 20.2 per cent of Ontarians lived in households that reported either being moderately or severely food insecure. This compares to 18.4 per cent across Canada. Food insecurity rates have worsened since 2020, except for a one percentage point drop between 2023 and 2024.
Figure 4 also shows how food insecurity is highly racialized in Ontario. In 2024, rates of moderate or severe food insecurity were just over 5 percentage points higher for racialized communities and about 11 percentage points higher for Indigenous people than they were for all persons (see Figure 12). Among family types, unattached singles and lone parents also consistently had the highest food insecurity rates, with a staggering 41 per cent of persons in lone-parent families and 27 per cent of working-age unattached singles reporting food insecurity in 2024.
Figure 12: Rates of moderate or severe food insecurity in Ontario by selected demographic characteristics (2020 to 2024)
Source: Statistics Canada. Table 13-10-0835-01 Food insecurity by selected demographic characteristics; and Statistics Canada. Table 13-10-0834-01 Food insecurity by economic family type. Figures are rounded to the nearest number.
A large proportion of the low-income population in Ontario is living in unaffordable housing
According to Statistics Canada, in 2021, roughly 32.1 per cent of Ontario renter households lived in housing that was considered unaffordable because it cost 30 per cent or more of the household’s income. Figure 13 shows that most renters living in unaffordable housing in 2021 were concentrated at the low end of the income spectrum.
Figure 13: Number of Ontario renters living in unaffordable housing (2021)
Source: Statistics Canada. Table 98-10-0252-01 Shelter-cost-to-income ratio by tenure: Canada, provinces and territories, census metropolitan areas and census agglomerations.
When housing takes up most of your income, missing a pay cheque puts you at higher risk of homelessness. As Maytree’s analysis has shown, the number of unhoused Ontario Works recipients has nearly doubled in recent years, driven mainly by an increase in homelessness among unattached single adults.
Ontario risks continuing down the wrong path
When Canada acceded to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in 1976, it did so with the support of Ontario and all other provinces. This treaty imposes a legally binding requirement on all levels of government to pursue the progressive realization of the right to an adequate standard of living. And yet, the Ontario government’s treatment of social assistance recipients since 2018 suggests it is content to ignore these human rights obligations.
The data shows that for many individuals poverty is an ingrained feature of Ontario’s withering safety net. As one Ontarian put it in a recent report, “You feel like you’ve fallen through the cracks and there’s no way to get out from under it because of the system. The system keeps you down once you’re down.”
The Ontario government can and should do better for its citizens by allocating the maximum available resources to address poverty.
Moreover, we know that income supports work. As shown in Figure 14, median government transfers to Ontario families peaked in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic – the same time that poverty rates hit a new low. As governments pulled back on these benefits, median transfers in Ontario returned to their low pre-pandemic levels, and poverty rates climbed again. This is the same trend we observed above in Figure 7, where the aggregate MBM deficit dropped sharply during the pandemic, only to return to and surpass pre-pandemic levels.
The high amount of transfers that senior families receive correlates with their low poverty rates relative to other households. Meanwhile, working-age unattached singles are overrepresented in poverty and receive the least in government transfers.
Figure 14: Median government transfers by selected economic family types in Ontario, 2024 constant dollars (2014 to 2024)
Source: Statistics Canada. Table 11-10-0190-01 Market income, government transfers, total income, income tax and after-tax income by economic family type.
Years of frozen Ontario Works rates have now resulted in a cumulative real dollar cut in benefits that is worse than the infamous cuts of 1995. Importantly, other provinces have not followed suit. Figure 15 shows how unattached singles considered employable in Ontario have fallen well behind their peers in all other provinces and territories.
Figure 15: Percentage change in total welfare income by province for an unattached single considered employable (2016 to 2025)
Source: Authors’ calculations based on Maytree’s annual Welfare in Canada publication.
Note 1: Total welfare income is the combined financial support a household receives from all federal, provincial, and territorial government transfers, including basic social assistance, additional allowances, and any tax credits or child benefits.
Note 2: Because Quebec introduced two social assistance programs that do not extend back to 2016, it is excluded from this figure for comparability purposes.
Finally, real program spending by the Ontario Ministry of Children, Community and Social Services has remained stagnant since 2018-19, suggesting that the challenges in social assistance extend across the social services sector. The most recent Ontario budget projections suggest real per capita program spending in children and social services is to decrease by 15 per cent by 2028-2029. Ontario’s current funding plans will put the province $3.1 billion short of what the FAO projects will be needed over the next four years to maintain current service levels and the projected caseload growth for Ontario Works and the Ontario Disability Support Program.
A new path is possible
The picture that emerges from the data is clear: Poverty in Ontario is high, rising, and increasingly difficult to escape.
But nothing about this is inevitable. Ontario’s next PRS is an opportunity to change course. The province cannot meaningfully “protect Ontario” by continuing to insist that employment is the sole path out of poverty. Without the political will to change course and centre income security in Ontario’s poverty reduction efforts, poverty rates are unlikely to improve.
Ontario has the resources and policy tools to reduce poverty. What has been missing is the willingness to use them at the scale required. The next PRS can chart a different path.