“Viable Income in Quebec: How Much You Need to Live with Dignity in 2023”

2023-05-03 04:05:00

To avoid poverty when living alone in Montreal in 2023, you must earn $32,252 following taxes, or $2,676 or 9% more than in 2022.

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You need a little less if you live in Saguenay ($27,047) or a little more if you live in Sept-Îles ($37,822), according to the 9th edition of the viable income of the Institute for Research and Information socio-economic (IRIS).

“It always costs more to be poor, and it also costs more to get out of poverty,” laments Eve-Lyne Couturier, researcher at IRIS and co-author of the study.

The viable income allows a dignified standard of living, describes the IRIS. It allows you to make choices and respond to unforeseen events. If the washing machine breaks tomorrow morning, those earning that income won’t have to wonder how they’re going to fix it.

It is also an income that allows certain sweets. “We are not talking regarding luxurious trips, but regarding taking a week’s camping vacation”, illustrates the researcher.

The IRIS calculates the viable income of three types of households in seven Quebec municipalities. A couple with two children in a CPE in Sept-Îles will therefore have to have a disposable income of $76,918 to live with dignity, compared to $73,585 in Gatineau.

Sept-Îles is the most expensive of the seven cities studied since it is impossible to live there without a car. “If the government wants to give us more space to achieve a viable income, it might support the development of public transit in Sept-Îles,” gives Ms. Couturier as an example.

Because there are only two ways to help households achieve a viable income: give them the necessary income (salaries, transfers, subsidies) or reduce their costs.

In Gatineau, for example, the average rent for a four-room apartment jumped 23% between 2022 and 2023. “If we managed to better control rents, we would succeed in increasing viable income”, assures the co-author of the study.

L’inflation

Inflation is the big culprit for the 9% jump in living income in 2023, as it was stronger in food, housing and transport.

These three items of expenditure represent 60% of the expenditure of the least fortunate households, once morest only 40% for the most fortunate households.

It is therefore necessary to spend more on basic needs, which leaves less for the little sweets.

Wider than 2023

The heart of the study lies in the analysis of income support measures, such as the famous CERB of 2020.

Thanks to this temporary aid, and other aid offered at the start of the pandemic, the number of people unable to meet their basic needs has been halved, writes IRIS, from 8.9% of the population to 4 .8%.

“We have succeeded in reducing poverty and expanding the middle class without affecting the richest,” maintains Eve-Lyne Couturier.

Which brings us to the Legault government’s recent tax cut, “which will improve the disposable incomes of people at the top of the ladder.”

According to IRIS, in view of the impact of the PCU, there would have been a way to protect the purchasing power of those at the bottom of the scale instead of lowering the taxes of the better off.

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