Statistics Canada has released the initial data from the most recent Canadian Income Survey. It is based on information collected in 2012 and shows that the median after-tax income of Canadian families of two or more people was $71,700.

Families consisting of two or more people in Ontario, Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia, had incomes that were higher than the national median, with Alberta posting the highest ($92,300), followed by Saskatchewan ($77,300), Ontario ($73,700) and British Columbia ($72,200).

The median after-tax income for senior families where the highest income earner was age 65 or older was $52,300, while it was $84,600 for two-parent families with children and $39,100 for lone-parent families headed by a woman.

For the unattached, the median after-tax income was $27,300 in 2012. For unattached seniors the median income was $25,000, while it was $28,300 for unattached non-seniors.

According to the after-tax low-income measure (LIM-AT), 4.7 million people in Canada, or 13.8% of the population, lived on a low income in 2012. “The LIM-AT is an internationally used measure of low income,” explains Statistics Canada. “The concept underlying the LIM-AT is that a household has low income if its income is less than half of the median income of all households.”