This book is a provocative challenge to current approaches to defining and measuring poverty. It argues that prevailing estimates greatly exaggerate the number of poor; that Statistics Canada's low-income cut-off, the standard tool used in virtually all studies measuring poverty, is badly flawed and that social assistance, in almost all cases, is perfectly adequate in covering all basic needs.

The author develops an alternative approach to defining and measuring poverty - one based on the cost of necessities. He argues persuasively that this basic needs approach gives us a more relevant and useful distinction between the poor and non poor and permits legitimate intertemporal and international comparisons.