Statistics Canada’s most recent income survey – 2022 figures that were published April 2024 – found that the median after-tax income of Canadian families and unattached individuals was $70,500 in 2022. Adjusted for inflation, this represents a 3.4 per cent decrease from $73,000 in 2021.
They say the decline can be partially attributed to the cessation of government transfers as benefits related to the COVID-19 pandemic and pandemic-related modifications to the Employment Insurance (EI) program were removed during the year.
Poverty rate
Annual inflation in 2022 was 6.8 per cent, contributing to the decline in income from the previous year. Canada’s official poverty rate was 9.9 per cent, an increase of 2.5 per cent from 7.4 per cent in 2021. The pre-pandemic poverty rate was 10.3 per cent.
“All benefits related to the pandemic were fully phased out and before the end of 2022, pandemic-related modifications to the eligibility requirements of the EI program were removed,” Statistics Canada researchers write in the annual Canadian Income Survey, 2022. “The share of government transfers in total income returns to its pre-pandemic level (13 per cent in 2022), after two consecutive years in which these transfers represented a disproportionately high share of total income – 15 per cent in 2021 and 19 per cent in 2020.”
