If you work for a living, you shouldn’t live in poverty. Yet, working poverty is a reality for far too many people across Canada. Secure, full-time jobs are increasingly out of reach, and even full-time, full-year jobs don’t necessarily pay enough to cover the basics anymore. In 2018, the Broadbent Institute reported that nearly half of those living in poverty in Canada were working and that of this group, a third held full-time full-year jobs. This number has likely risen due to rapid cost of living increases outpacing wages. This has real, lasting impacts: people working multiple jobs without paid sick days face burnout; children miss out on the good food and support they need to do well in school; families are left needing to choose big box stores with low prices over supporting local businesses; and communities lose the vital contributions of people who no longer have time or capacity to volunteer or participate. Working poverty strains our communities, our economy, and our collective well-being. To address this trend, several communities are taking action to end working poverty locally. This roadmap and toolkit is meant to help other communities address this challenge as well.
This roadmap & toolkit is for anyone working to reduce or end working poverty in their community – whether you're a resident group, nonprofit, faith organization, local government, funder, academic, or a collaborative mix of all the above. It offers a snapshot of current trends in working poverty across medium and small/rural communities in Canada, along with a step-by-step guide for building a localized plan. You'll find practical tools, examples, and policy recommendations to help communities align efforts with provincial/territorial and federal governments. This roadmap and suggested tools were assembled based on our experience with several different collaboratives. However, the steps do not often happen in a perfectly linear way, and will likely need be adapted for each community’s context. Whether you're just starting out or refining an existing strategy, this guide is meant to support your local efforts while connecting them to bigger picture changes to systems and policies.
Over three years, the Tamarack Institute undertook a research and action project that supported five medium and small/rural communities across Canada to create and implement ending working poverty strategies. The participating communities were:
Winnipeg, Manitoba – is a large prairie city of 834,000 people, known for its cultural diversity, deep Indigenous roots, and economy driven by manufacturing, transportation, and public sector employment. It is the economic powerhouse of Manitoba and a major transit artery for rail, trucking and air.
Saskatoon, Saskatchewan – is a mid-sized prairie city of 370,000 people, recognized for its vibrant Indigenous cultures and a diverse economy rooted in agriculture, mining, and a growing tech sector. Since 2018, it has been one of Canada’s fastest growing cities, with immigration being a primary factor.
Chatham-Kent, Ontario - is a larger rural community in southwestern Ontario with about 100,000 people. Known for its agricultural roots, close-knit communities, and a local economy centred on farming, manufacturing, and small business, this community produces over half of all of Ontario’s tomatoes.
Trail, British Columbia - is a small, rural industrial community in southeastern B.C. with 7,700 people, known for its deep ties to mining and metallurgy, home to one of the world’s largest lead-zinc smelters. Its local economy is shaped by manufacturing, the natural resource sector, and cross-border metal and timber trade.
Drumheller, Alberta - is a small rural town in southern Alberta with 7,900 people, known for its badlands landscape, strong tourism tied to rich dinosaur bonebeds, and a local economy rooted in agriculture, energy, and natural resource development.
Most research on working poverty in Canada focuses on big cities such as Toronto, Vancouver, and Montreal, leading to strategies that don’t always translate to smaller or rural communities. Our data gathering and analysis of medium, small, and rural areas show differences in both labour market and poverty trends:
Access to infrastructure and services: Urban areas often have essential amenities (e.g., child care, transit, libraries), but barriers like affordability, cultural fit, or availability remain. In rural communities, these amenities are often sparse or entirely absent, and solutions must reflect that gap.
Gender dynamics: While working poverty often affects men more in cities, it's women who are most affected in smaller communities, where good jobs are concentrated in male-dominated sectors like mining and manufacturing.
Race and language: In urban areas, racialized status and limited English/French fluency are strongly tied to poverty. In rural settings, this link weakens — though Indigenous identity features more prominently in some Prairie communities.
Wages and job quality: Some provinces (e.g., Ontario, Alberta, B.C.) have minimum wages that can keep full-time, full-year workers above the poverty line. Others do not. Across all regions, precarious work—part-time, seasonal, without benefits—continues to push people below the poverty line despite employment.
What follows is a practical roadmap and toolkit, shaped by these insights, to help other communities develop their own working poverty reduction plans.