Incomes for Canada’s richest 1% rose nearly 10% in 2021, tax filings show (2024)

The richest people in Canada got a lot richer in 2021, even as the poorest half of all tax filerssaw their incomes decline by $1,400.

That's one of the main takeaways of anew data analysis released by Statistics Canada(new window)on Friday looking at tax filings from 2021 and comparing them with the previous year.

According to the data agency, incomes of the top1 per centof alltax filers in Canadarose by 9.4 per centto $579,100 in 2021.

That figure includes all forms of taxable income, from salary and bonuses to things like capital gains, dividends and other payments that were registered with tax authorities.

The 10 per cent pay bump for the top 1 per cent contrasts with incomes moving in the opposite direction for many other Canadians.

Filers in the bottom half of the distribution saw their average total income decline $1,400from2020to $21,100in2021, Statistics Canada said in a release Friday. The agency said most of that decline was due to the lowering or ending of pandemic-era government programs like CERBand CEWS.

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The report did not provide detailed data about income levels for the top 49 per cent, or the average Canadian, just those in the bottom half and the very top.

While the 1 per cent got an almost 10 per cent pay bump, the tiny group of people above them fared better still. Filers in the top0.1 per centsaw their average total income increase by17.4 per centto $2,086,100, while those in the top0.01 per centsaw their average total income increase25.7 per centto $7,731,400.

Income gap getting wider

Taken together, the figures released Friday show that the share of income taken in by the richest 1 per cent of Canadians got even more top-heavy during the years in question.

The top 1 per cent received10.4 per centof all the aggregated income earned by tax filers that year, up from9.4 per centin2020and the highest level posted since2015, StatsCan reported.

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If there was a sector of society where income distribution got more equitable during the year, it would be the balance between men and women within the 1 per cent.

Overall, women composed26.1 per centof the top1 per centof income tax filers, up from25.4 per centin2020, the data agency reported.The share of women in the top1 per centhas been increasing steadily since this series started in1982, when the share was11.4 per cent.

CBC News