[Article] Rising poverty and economic insecurity among BC seniors

Originally published: Nov 27, 2025

Nearly 170,000 BC seniors are living in poverty and many more have incomes only marginally above the poverty line. 

The poverty rate among BC seniors (15.5%) now exceeds the poverty rate of every other age group, a change since 2015. These are real people who are forced to choose between groceries and medication, between heating their homes and paying rent. 

Poverty and economic insecurity present a particular hardship for seniors when combined with the overlapping challenges of aging: chronic disease, loss of mobility, declining health and the loss of spousal and community support. 

The challenges of seniors living in poverty are largely invisible. Seniors are often thought of as a group of well-off retirees who own their homes, but such generalizations ignore the reality of deep income and housing inequality.

Seniors’ poverty: from success story to crisis

Until the mid-1970s, old age meant living in poverty for more than a third of BC seniors. Reducing seniors’ poverty was one of Canada’s greatest social policy success stories of the 20^th century.

The extraordinary decline in seniors’ poverty in BC from over 30% to just 2% between the mid-1970s and the mid-1990s was driven by an expansion of government programs, including the Canadian Pension Plan, Old Age Security and the Guaranteed Income Supplement. The rapid decline of seniors’ poverty was not matched by similar declines in the poverty rate for other age groups like children and working-age adults. 

However, this social policy success has now been reversed and seniors’ poverty rates have risen significantly since the mid-1990s.

Certain groups of BC seniors experience higher poverty rates than the average 15.5%:

• Seniors living alone or with non-relatives are four times more likely to be poor than those living with a spouse or relatives (33.8% vs 8.9%).
• Single senior women who live alone—34.9%, which is higher than the poverty rate of single-mother families.
• Recent immigrants over 65 (both men and women about 20%), racialized senior women (18.6%), immigrant senior women (17.6%), seniors with disabilities (17.1%), racialized senior men (16.3%). (Data for Canada from Census 2021).
• LGBTQ2S+ seniors (data is not readily available).

These disparities reveal how poverty in old age compounds existing gender, racial and other social inequalities, creating layers of disadvantage that leave the most vulnerable seniors furthest behind.

The invisible struggle of low-income seniors

Many seniors have incomes just above the poverty line with half of BC seniors living on after-tax income of less than $35,000 per year and 28% living on income less than $25,000. As of March 2025 about 30% of BC seniors (344,449 seniors) receive the Guaranteed Income Supplement (GIS), a monthly federal benefit for seniors with low incomes.

While these seniors are not technically in poverty, they still struggle to make ends meet, particularly because they usually have higher health care expenses than younger age groups. These seniors are missed by many public policies that narrowly target those below the poverty line. 

It’s worth noting that seniors are much less likely than working-age adults to have incomes over $100,000 per year. A small minority of seniors have very high incomes: in 2023 (the most-recent data), there were about 7,250 seniors with after-tax income of $250,000 and above. 

Gender gaps have persisted over time. In Canada, the gender gap in seniors’ median after-tax income was 26.1% in 2022, slightly down from 33.8% in 1976.

The costs of aging put additional pressure on seniors’ budgets.

Most BC seniors do not have an extended health plan. There are no comprehensive provincial or federal programs to provide eyeglasses, hearing aids or medical equipment and until recently, dental care. Canada’s public health care system does not cover a number of vital health services that seniors require, including home support, residential care and many mental health services. 

In BC, home support fees are high for low-income seniors as only those who receive the GIS are not charged a co-payment. In contrast, some Canadian provinces like Ontario and Alberta provide home support services without charge and the provinces that do have fees are generally lower than what’s charged in BC.

Seniors who rent have been hit hard by the housing crisis

While seniors are more likely to own their home than working-age families, a significant number of BC seniors rent—approximately 20% or one in five senior households according to the 2021 Census. The median total income of senior renter households is lower than the income of senior owner households.

In BC, 43.7% of renters who are seniors live in unaffordable housing (costing more than 30% of their income). This is a significantly higher percentage than the 29.9% of renters who are working-age adults who live in unaffordable housing. One third of senior renter households are in core housing need (33.0%), which is much higher than the 17.7% among working-age renter households. Core housing need is highest for single senior women (48.1%), on par with the rate for single-parent households (48.5%). There are long wait lists for seniors to access rent-geared-to-income housing in BC as demand outstrips supply.

A path forward: improving economic security for BC seniors

To tackle poverty and low-income among BC seniors, we need provincial and federal government action to improve retirement security. Provincially, this would include an increase to the BC Seniors Supplement (a top-up to the GIS for low-income seniors) and indexing it to inflation. There also needs to be further increases to the federal Guaranteed Income Supplement.

Increased investment in a diverse range of affordable housing options would help ease the burden of the housing crisis for seniors. We must also ensure that the SAFER program, an income-tested rent subsidy for people aged 60 or older, does not keep recipients in core housing need. 

Implementing universal pharmacare and extended health programs would reduce health spending by seniors as would eliminating charges for publicly funded home support and increasing access to these vital services.

In addition to government programs and supports, increasing funding for seniors’ organizations is crucial to support social engagement among seniors and to help seniors access supports and services they need to live with dignity.