Experimental estimates of family weekly income, January 2020 to March 2021

Statistics Canada has undertaken a broad range of initiatives designed to understand the impacts of COVID-19 on Canadians. This update extends earlier, experimental research into monthly family income trends of Canadians over the pandemic period. The approach integrates weekly earnings available from the Canadian Labour Force Survey (LFS) together with information specific to government transfers including special COVID-19 benefits collected through administrative data sources and imputation. This update incorporates additional data sources and takes into account the emergency programs introduced at the beginning of the pandemic as well as the recovery programs introduced in late September 2020 to replace them. Population coverage is consistent with the second edition, however experimental estimates have been updated and extended through March 2021. The paper describes the data sources used, estimation strategies employed, limitations, and potential future developments.