Financial well-being

Percentage of persons living in households by level of difficulty in meeting their financial needs in terms of transportation, housing, food, clothing, and other necessary expenses.

The financial well-being indicator in the Quality of Life Framework is based on a household's own assessment of its ability to meet its financial needs in terms of transportation, housing, food, clothing, and other necessary expenses. In the Quality of Life Framework, the financial well-being indicator captures the subjective (or perceived) financial well-being of Canadians, whereas the poverty indicator is an objective measure based on whether a family's income falls below a specified poverty line.

This indicator is measured in selected iterations of the Canadian Social Survey (CSS) and in the Canadian Housing Survey (CHS). Survey respondents are asked:

In the past 12 months, how difficult or easy was it for your household to meet its financial needs in terms of transportation, housing, food, clothing, and other necessary expenses? Would you say:

• Very difficult
• Difficult
• Neither difficult nor easy
• Easy
• Very easy

This indicator has also been collected in selected iterations of the Labour Force Survey (LFS) through its supplement, on a monthly basis from April 2020 to June 2021 and in October 2022. In the LFS, respondents were asked to report on their level of difficulty in the past month.

• Canadian Social Survey (CSS)
  • Table 45-10-0086-01 – Difficulty meeting financial needs, by gender and province
  • Table 45-10-0087-01 – Difficulty meeting financial needs, by gender and other selected sociodemographic characteristics
• Canadian Housing Survey (CHS)
  • Table 43-10-0058-01 – Feeling part of the community and neighbourhood satisfaction, safety feeling and economic hardship, by visible minority and selected characteristics

• Nationally, renters report lower quality of life than homeowners (The Daily, February 19, 2024)
• More Canadians are finding it difficult to meet food, shelter and other necessary expenses (The Daily, March 7, 2023)
• One in four Canadians are unable to cover an unexpected expense of $500 (The Daily, February 13, 2023)
• Rising prices and the impact on the most financially vulnerable: A profile of those in the bottom family income quintile (Insights on Canadian Society, February 8, 2023)
• Labour Force Survey, October 2022 (The Daily, November 4, 2022)
• The financial resilience and financial well-being of Canadians during the COVID-19 pandemic (Income Research Paper Series, September 9, 2021)