Incidence: 17.9% of people lived in poverty in 1996, up from 17.1% in 1994. Children and the elderly had higher poverty rates - 21.1% and 20.8% respectively. However, unattached elderly persons had a much higher poverty rate (47.9%) than did those who lived in a family unit (7.6%).
Numbers: There were approximately 722,000 elderly persons living in poverty in 1996; of these, 544,000 were unattached.
Distribution: 28.3% of all the poor people in Canada in 1996 were children; 13.6% were elderly; the rest (58.1%) were between the ages of 18 and 64.
Canada has some work to do