B.C. lags on income, census shows
Provincial ranking falls to seventh as median remains below average
People across B.C. experienced income growth between 2005 and 2015, according to Canada’s census, but this province slipped in its ranking against other provinces.
Statistics Canada says the most recent census figures show B.C.’s median household income in 2015 was $69,995 — a 12.2 per cent increase from $62,372 in 2005. The median income is the level at which half the population made more and half made less.
B.C.’s income growth beat the national increase of 10.8 per cent, but the provincial median income remained lower than Canada’s overall $70,336.
At $69,995, B.C. ranked only seventh among provinces and territories, down from sixth in 2006. B.C. was behind Ontario ($74,287), Saskatchewan ($75,512), Yukon ($84,521), Alberta ($93,835), Nunavut ($97,441) and the Northwest Territories ($117,688).
“I think what it says for (B.C.) is that we have a very diversified economy,” said Bryan Yu, chief economist for Central 1 Credit Union.
“We’re not going to see the massive wage cycles like you do in Alberta or other resource economies, and we’re also not going to see some of the downsides of some of the Atlantic provinces.”
Yu said the 2015 tax-year snapshot captured by the 2016 census misses some of the strong economic growth Metro Vancouver has experienced recently that should contribute to better income growth in future years.
Metro Vancouver’s median household income grew 11.2 per cent to hit $72,662, which was weaker growth than the provincial average but ahead of Toronto (3.3 per cent) and Montreal (8.8 per cent).
The 2015 figures don’t account for declines in B.C.’s energy sector since 2015, which has taken an edge off the region’s strong performance, Yu said.
“A key difference is the resource-concentrated areas,” Yu said. “They saw a boom at the front end of that 2005-to-2015 period, which really tailed off.”
Fort St. John was the B.C. community with the highest median household income at $107,091, a 27.5 per cent jump from the 2006 figure and the second-biggest increase.
Nearby Dawson Creek had the biggest increase at 31.6 per cent, which pushed median incomes to $79,211.
The community with the lowest median household income was Port Alberni with $55,131, just a 1.4 per cent increase over 2005’s median income.
Powell River had the slowest growth in median household income at just 0.2 per cent, which brought the amount to $56,367.
For Metro Vancouver, demographics helped fuel some of the income growth captured in the census snapshot. About 69.6 per cent of the region’s population was between the ages of 15 and 64 during the census, compared to a national average of 66.5 per cent across Canada.
“That is telling us that there are actually more people in the working age group, for example. That is one reason contributing to the growth here, because they tend to be making wages and salaries instead of collecting income from the government,” Statistics Canada analyst Jennifer Yuen said.
The growth “speaks to the strong job market we’ve seen in the Lower Mainland,” said Jock Finlayson, executive vice-president of the Business Council of B.C.
“More people are working per household, helping to lift up household incomes here, though there continue to be concerns about low wages.”
Employment growth across Metro Vancouver, Finlayson said, has been broadly distributed in sectors such as high-tech, technical services such as engineering and environmental services, the port, the airport and film production.
“That is one of the strengths of (Metro Vancouver’s) economy,” Finlayson said.
“The bad news is the cost of housing has gone up faster than incomes in the region.”
Yuen said the increase in median incomes in suburbs outside of Vancouver support anecdotal accounts that people have moved away from Vancouver because of the high cost of living.
“I think that’s why we are seeing some of the income shift — to Surrey, for example — because there are more families starting their lives there and those dual-income earners,” Yuen said.
The number of B.C. households grew from 1.6 million in 2006 to 1.8 million in 2016, a 14.5 per cent increase.
The community with the largest growth in households was Squamish, which experienced a 28.8 per cent increase, jumping from 5,725 to 7,375. Prince Rupert had a 3.5 per cent drop in the number of households, down to 5,290.