Since taking office in the fall of 2015, the Liberal government has made important changes to the publicly administered components of Canada’s retirement income system (RIS). It has restored the age of eligibility for benefits under Old Age Security (OAS) and the Guaranteed Income Supplement...

The introduction of Tax-Free Savings Accounts (TFSAs) in 2009 transformed how  Canadians save. One of the main reasons for creating TFSAs was to provide a taxassisted savings instrument for low-income Canadians to enable them to improve their retirement income. Now, 10 years later, many low-income...

This working paper compares three commonly used measures of low income used in Canadian poverty analysis. It is the fourth in a series of working papers intended to promote a discussion by participants in our Sounding Board and others. Thresholds and incidences of low-income for the Low Income...

Ensuring the economic well-being of Canada’s growing population of seniors is an important and complex public policy challenge that the new federal government must grapple with. Few disagree with the goal of providing all citizens with the means for a dignified and economically secure retirement....

In this report, the take-up of government benefits is presented as one indicator of Canadians’ financial literacy—that is, their “knowledge, skills and confidence to make responsible financial decisions.” Low take-up rates clearly suggest that some Canadians lack the financial literacy...

A presentation on how financial coaching is different, client interaction and program evaluation and coaching as presented by Richard Simonds of Family Services of Greater...

This brief examines the financial challenges confronting low-income older adults, with a focus on housing costs. It estimates the share of adults who have inadequate income, reports their income sources, and describes their spending patterns. Data come from the American Community Survey and the...

This review looks at the activities, impact, and drivers and barriers to success of four types of community-led approaches: voluntary action, community organising, social action and community economic...

Policy makers have embraced financial education as a necessary antidote to the increasing complexity of consumers’ financial decisions over the last generation. This research conducts a meta-analysis of the relationship of financial literacy and of financial education to financial behaviours in...

This article in the Economic Insights series from Statistics Canada examines the economic well-being of millennials by comparing their household balance sheets to those of previous generations of young Canadians. Measured at the same point in their life course, millennials were relatively better...

This report was commissioned by the SMCPC for the purpose of replicating for the British case, as far as possible, the findings in Our Kids. In this era in which public concern about poverty, inequality, and social mobility has been increasing, our primary aim in this report is to find out if the...