63% of low-income Canadians worried about impacts of inflation on food, housing: report

The report published Wednesday also found nearly 44 per cent of Canadians in 2022 were "very concerned" about their ability to meet daily expenses. 

More than six in 10 or 63 per cent of Canadians belonging to low-income households are worried about the impacts of inflation on food, housing and other expenses, a recent report by Statistics Canada has found.

The report published Wednesday also found nearly 44 per cent of Canadians in 2022 were “very concerned” about their ability to meet daily expenses. The study used data from multiple sources, including the Canadian Income Survey and the Survey of Financial Security.

“This is hardly a surprise,” said Christopher Ragan, economist, and director of McGill University’s Max Bell School of Public Policy. “Prices are rising the same amount whether you are rich or poor. But of course, if you are a lower-income family or a lower-income household, those rising prices hurt more.”

Headline inflation peaked at 8.1 per cent in June of 2022, with the most recent figure for December showing annual price hikes have cooled to 6.3 per cent.

To make ends meet, 19 per cent of low-income Canadians in 2022 reported that they had to often borrow money from friends or relatives or take on more debt. This compares to two per cent of those who were not low-income, according to Statistics Canada.

Canadians with the lowest income were also “more than three times as likely” — 17 per cent versus five per cent — as others to report that they would possibly obtain food or meals from a community organization over the next six months due to soaring costs, the survey found.

However, according to Ragan, this is not solely due to inflation.

“Even in the absence of inflation, we deal with this issue because we’ve always had low-income households,” said Ragan.