The overall net worth of Canadian households increased in the first quarter of 2025, relative to one year earlier. However, the income gap between the highest and lowest income households reached a record high during the quarter. The income gap increased each year following the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

“Highest income households gained from investment while the lowest income households’ wages declined,” say authors of the Statistics Canada report, Distribution of household economic accounts for income, consumption, saving and wealth of Canadian households, first quarter 2025. 

“The income gap is defined as the difference in the share of disposable income between households in the top 40 per cent of the income distribution and the bottom 40 per cent. This gap reached a record high of 49 percentage points in the first quarter of 2025,” they add. A low of 43.8 percentage points was recorded in the first quarter of 2021.

“The gap in wealth between the top 20 per cent and the bottom 40 per cent reached 61.4 percentage points in the first quarter of 2025,” they write. 

Disposable income 

Household interest payments decreased by 4.8 per cent in the first quarter of 2025 when compared to the same period a year earlier. Disposable income, all household categories combined, grew by 6.0 per cent. The lowest income households had the weakest growth in disposable income, thanks largely to declining wages resulting from reduced hours of work. 

“The lowest income households also had the largest reduction in net investment income, as a decline in investment earnings (-$399 or 35.3 per cent) more than offset lower interest payments (-$107 or a decline of 7.1 per cent),” they write. 

Conversely, they add that “average disposable income for the highest income households (top 20 per cent of the income distribution) increased at the fastest pace of any income group in the first quarter of 2025 relative to one year earlier (+$3,748, an increase of 7.7 per cent). This is due mainly to gains in average wages ($2,441 or 4.7 per cent) and investment income ($1,070 or 7.4 per cent).” For the same reasons, their savings also increased the most. 

Middle income households, those in the middle 60 per cent of the income distribution increased their income at a below-average pace in the first quarter of 2025 as wages grew 4.4 per cent but investment income declined 2.1 per cent relative to figures reported a year earlier. 

Unequal wealth 

The wealthiest 20 per cent accounted for 64.7 per cent of Canada’s total net worth, averaging $3.3-million per household. The bottom 40 per cent of the wealth distribution accounted for 3.3 per cent of Canada’s total net worth, averaging $85,700.