Working Hard or Hardly Working? Who are Canada’s Working Poor?

Working poverty in Canada is shrouded in mystery and misconception due to the little attention given to this area in research and policy-making. We performed an analysis of working poverty in Canada by using data from the Canadian Income Survey and conducted a binomial logistic regression to discuss the general profile of the working poor and the determinants of working poverty. We found that the working poor have high rates of post-secondary education and worked full-time hours. Moreover, being an immigrant, a single-earner (e.g., unattached individual, lone-parent family, single-earning household), and being self-employed were determinants of working poverty.