Prairies, commodity boom drive income growth
CENSUS LOOKS AT HOW CANADIANS MAKE ENDS MEET
Carissa, a single mom on welfare six years ago, has a full-time job today and more money to show for it — along with a number of other Canadians, suggest fresh census numbers released Wednesday that shine new light on the struggle to make ends meet.
But the latest income figures, based on tax data from 2015, also illustrate the regional and societal disparities the fiveyear census always seems to expose: commodity riches in the West, job shortages in Atlantic Canada, manufacturing woes in Ontario and Quebec — and a persistent, if narrowing, wage gap between working women and men.
On average, Canadians saw a steady rise in their income between 2005 and 2015, when the median national household income weighed in at $70,336, up 10.8 per cent from $63,457 a decade earlier, once adjusted for inflation.
Much of that increase can be attributed to the spike in commodity prices over that 10-year period, helping resource-rich regions like Nunavut, Saskatchewan, Alberta and Newfoundland and Labrador post increases twice or three times the national average.
It’s another layer on the paint-by-numbers portrait Statistics Canada began in February with a population boom out West, which saw a commensurate spike in the number of households. Additional brushstrokes added a historically high number of seniors, children staying at home longer and more generations than ever living under Canadian roofs, among other flourishes.
Growth in incomes isn’t always tied to more people, Statistics Canada is quick to note. But in this case, the country’s migration west followed a rise in oil prices, fuelling a construction boom that helped drive up median incomes and drive down poverty rates.
“One of the stories of the resource boom is that there are definitely increases in median income, but most of the gains are going to go to the top (earners),” said David Macdonald, a senior economist with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.
“Much of the action (on income) is because of the Prairies, not as much because of the traditional engines of growth, which are Ontario and Quebec.”
Canada’s most populous province watched its median income barely move over the last decade, its 3.8 per cent rise ranking a dismal last.
That’s thanks to a decline in manufacturing since 2005, including a loss of 318,000 jobs, or roughly 30 per cent. In Windsor, Ont., an automotive hub that fared worst of all of Ontario’s cities, median income actually dropped, causing an increase in the number of children living in poverty.
The Atlantic provinces and Quebec had the lowest median incomes in the country in 2015, just as in 2005, although there were wide variations in Quebec.