Percentage of People Below Poverty Line

Question

A faculty member here wants the percent of people below the poverty line in Canada and the provinces back as far as possible (ideally to the 50s, but he would be satisfied with as far back as possible).

I found an article on the Stats. Can. site entitled "On Poverty and Low Income" (http://www.statcan.ca/english/research/13F0027XIE/13F0027XIE.htm),
which I printed up for him. Essentially it states that the only thing that Stats Can does is Low Income Cut-off data, which is very different than poverty line. We found data in CANSIM based on the Low Income Cut-Offs that goes back to 1980. I also found a Low Income Cut-Off variable in the Annual Survey of Consumer Finance (SCF) which would take him back to 1973.

I also found the Canadian Social Research Links Poverty Measures Web site
(http://www.canadiansocialresearch.net/poverty.htm),
which I also referred him to. This site discusses different measures of poverty in Canada.

Is there anything obvious that I am missing, or have I covered all bases?

Responses

1) From Income division:

Consumer Income and Expenditure Division Un-catalogued (Window Cover) Publication, Released December 17, 1973: History of LICOs

LICOs were initially developed for the 1961 Census Monograph (Catalogue 99-544) "Income of Canadians" and were later used by the Economic Council of Canada in the 5th and 6th Annual Reviews. These lines were originally set at $1,500, $2,500, $3000, $3,500, and $4,000 for families of sizes 1, 2, 3, 4, 5+ respectively for 1961. Each year since 1961, these cut-offs have been updated by the CPI and the characteristics of the low income population defined by the resulting cut-offs have been presented and analysed in various reports produced by the Consumer and Expenditure Division.

Note 1: The Consumer and Expenditure Division Publication 13-207, Annual since 1971, page 72, Table 53 provides the incidence of low income among families and unattached individuals by province of residence.

Note 2: There was a paper note in the ISD binder indicating that the following low income publications, Catalogue 13-536 (1967) and Catalogue 13-553 (1969) were borrowed in the past, unfortunately, they are still missing. The content would have to be confirmed and provided by our STC Library if they still have a copy.

Consumer Income and Expenditure Division Un-catalogued (Window Cover) Publication, Released January 1986: Background

STC's LICOs were introduced in 1968 on 1961 Census income data and 1959 national family expenditure patterns. (National FMX data have only been produced for 1959, 1969 and 1978. Between these years the cut-offs could only be updated through the use of the CPI). They were updated each year from 1961 based on price changes as reflected in the CPI, and were revised in 1973 based on the next national expenditure survey, which had been taken for 1969.

2) You may also want to try this free STC publication, it is a "classic" on the subject:
http://www.statcan.ca:8096/bsolc/francais/bsolc?catno=13-551-XIB