Basic needs approach in different countries

The proportion of Canadians who are living in poverty has generally declined over the last three decades.


Professor Chris Sarlo, an economist at Nipissing University in North Bay, Canada and a senior fellow of the Fraser Institute, uses Statistics Canada's socio-economic databases, particularly the Survey of Household Spending to determine the cost of a list of household necessities.


The list includes food, shelter, clothing, health care, personal care, essential furnishings, transportation and communication, laundry, home insurance, and miscellaneous; it assumes that education is provided freely to all residents of Canada. This is calculated for various communities across Canada and adjusted for family size.


With this information, he determines the proportion of Canadian households that have insufficient income to afford those necessities. Since the early 1970s, the poverty rate has declined from about 12% of Canadian households to about 5%.