Analysis

Description: This article presents recent inheritance findings from the Survey of Financial Security. It highlights the level of familial support many young homeowners have received to enter the housing market.

Description:

The evolution of the wealth, assets and debts of various groups of Canadians since the late 1990s has been documented in several studies. Yet little is known about the evolution of the wealth holdings of unattached men and women aged 50 and older, who make up a large part of the population. This study assesses how the wealth holdings of unattached men and women aged 50 and older evolved from 1999 to 2016 using data from the Survey of Financial Security of 1999, 2005, 2012 and 2016, and fills this information gap.

Description:

This study uses data from the 2016 Survey of Financial Security to examine financial distress indicators for Canadian families. Three financial distress indicators are examined: the proportion of Canadian families who skipped or delayed a mortgage payment, the proportion who skipped or delayed a non-mortgage payment and the proportion who borrowed money through a payday loan. This paper also examines the factors associated with financial distress among Canadians, with a particular focus on their debt level.

Description:

While several studies have documented the evolution of the earnings of immigrants in Canada over the last three decades, the evolution of immigrants’ wealth has received relatively little attention. Using data from the Survey of Financial Security of 1999, 2005, 2012 and 2016, this study fills this gap. The study uncovers several key patterns.

Description:

This Economic Insights article quantifies the degree to which families who expect their financial situation to get better in the next two years have, all else equal, more debt than comparable families. The data are drawn from the Survey of Financial Security for 1999, 2005 and 2016. The term “family” is used to refer to family units and includes economic families and unattached individuals. Debt and income estimates are shown in 2016 dollars. The study shows that even after a large set of socioeconomic characteristics is controlled for, families who expect their financial situation to improve in the near future have significantly more debt and generally higher debt-to-income ratios than other families.

Description:

Using Statistics Canada data from a variety of sources, including the Survey of Labour and Income Dynamics, the Canadian Income Survey, the Survey of Financial Security, and the 2016 Census of Population, this chapter of Women in Canada examines women's economic well-being in comparison with men's and, where relevant, explores how it has evolved over the past 40 years. In addition to gender, age and family type (i.e., couple families with or without children; lone mothers and fathers; and single women and men without children) are important determinants of economic well-being. Hence, many of the analyses distinguish between women and men in different age groups and/or family types.

Description:

This study compares the wealth holdings of family units covered by workplace pension plans with those of other family units. It focuses on families and unattached individuals who had no significant business equity and whose major income recipient was aged 30 to 54 and employed as a paid worker. The paper also examines whether wealth differences observed between families with registered pension plan (RPP) assets and other families persist when key sociodemographic differences between the two populations are taken into account.

Description: This study uses administrative tax data and the Survey of Financial Security to explore trends in the number and characteristics of high-income Canadians, as well as their wealth and effective income tax rates, from 1982 to 2004. The paper uses a range of thresholds to delineate high income and emphasizes statistics on the top 5%, 1%, 0.1% and 0.01% of tax filers.

The study found that an individual income of $89,000 was needed to be counted among the top 5% if income recipients in 2004. A family income of $154,000 would place one in the top 5% of families. The growth in incomes at the high end has been quite rapid while incomes of the majority of the population remained stable. Compared with the U.S., Canada had significantly fewer high-income recipients in 2004, and their incomes were considerably less. Higher-income individuals tend to be middle aged married males that live in the larger urban centres. While women have made up a larger portion on the top 5% of tax filers since 1982, they have not made gains in the very highest income groups. High income Canadians have roughly the same share of total wealth as they do of total income.

High income Canadians, in line with an increasing share of total income, have been paying an increasing share of total personal income taxes. Their share of total income increased from 21% to 25% between 1992 and 2004 while their share of income taxes paid increased from 30% to 36%. At the same time their effective tax rate dropped from 29% to 27%. Thus despite lower tax rates the increase in incomes was large enough, when combined with the progressive tax system, to result in an increased share of total taxes paid by high income Canadians. There is considerable heterogeneity in effective tax rates at the individual level with some high income individuals facing an effective tax rate of over 45%, while some pay as little as 10%. The proportion of tax filers, across the income distribution, who pay zero taxes decreased between 1992 and 2004.

Description:

Major changes in the wealth structure have taken place over the last two decades. Between 1984 and 2005, virtually all population subgroups experienced a greater increase in average wealth than in median wealth, suggesting that Canadian families are becoming increasingly unequal in their capacity to deal with income shocks. The increase would have been even greater without the marked aging of the population.

Description: This article presents recent inheritance findings from the Survey of Financial Security. It highlights the level of familial support many young homeowners have received to enter the housing market.

Description:

The evolution of the wealth, assets and debts of various groups of Canadians since the late 1990s has been documented in several studies. Yet little is known about the evolution of the wealth holdings of unattached men and women aged 50 and older, who make up a large part of the population. This study assesses how the wealth holdings of unattached men and women aged 50 and older evolved from 1999 to 2016 using data from the Survey of Financial Security of 1999, 2005, 2012 and 2016, and fills this information gap.

Description:

This study uses data from the 2016 Survey of Financial Security to examine financial distress indicators for Canadian families. Three financial distress indicators are examined: the proportion of Canadian families who skipped or delayed a mortgage payment, the proportion who skipped or delayed a non-mortgage payment and the proportion who borrowed money through a payday loan. This paper also examines the factors associated with financial distress among Canadians, with a particular focus on their debt level.

Description:

While several studies have documented the evolution of the earnings of immigrants in Canada over the last three decades, the evolution of immigrants’ wealth has received relatively little attention. Using data from the Survey of Financial Security of 1999, 2005, 2012 and 2016, this study fills this gap. The study uncovers several key patterns.

Description:

This Economic Insights article quantifies the degree to which families who expect their financial situation to get better in the next two years have, all else equal, more debt than comparable families. The data are drawn from the Survey of Financial Security for 1999, 2005 and 2016. The term “family” is used to refer to family units and includes economic families and unattached individuals. Debt and income estimates are shown in 2016 dollars. The study shows that even after a large set of socioeconomic characteristics is controlled for, families who expect their financial situation to improve in the near future have significantly more debt and generally higher debt-to-income ratios than other families.

Description:

Using Statistics Canada data from a variety of sources, including the Survey of Labour and Income Dynamics, the Canadian Income Survey, the Survey of Financial Security, and the 2016 Census of Population, this chapter of Women in Canada examines women's economic well-being in comparison with men's and, where relevant, explores how it has evolved over the past 40 years. In addition to gender, age and family type (i.e., couple families with or without children; lone mothers and fathers; and single women and men without children) are important determinants of economic well-being. Hence, many of the analyses distinguish between women and men in different age groups and/or family types.

Description:

This study compares the wealth holdings of family units covered by workplace pension plans with those of other family units. It focuses on families and unattached individuals who had no significant business equity and whose major income recipient was aged 30 to 54 and employed as a paid worker. The paper also examines whether wealth differences observed between families with registered pension plan (RPP) assets and other families persist when key sociodemographic differences between the two populations are taken into account.

Description: This study uses administrative tax data and the Survey of Financial Security to explore trends in the number and characteristics of high-income Canadians, as well as their wealth and effective income tax rates, from 1982 to 2004. The paper uses a range of thresholds to delineate high income and emphasizes statistics on the top 5%, 1%, 0.1% and 0.01% of tax filers.

The study found that an individual income of $89,000 was needed to be counted among the top 5% if income recipients in 2004. A family income of $154,000 would place one in the top 5% of families. The growth in incomes at the high end has been quite rapid while incomes of the majority of the population remained stable. Compared with the U.S., Canada had significantly fewer high-income recipients in 2004, and their incomes were considerably less. Higher-income individuals tend to be middle aged married males that live in the larger urban centres. While women have made up a larger portion on the top 5% of tax filers since 1982, they have not made gains in the very highest income groups. High income Canadians have roughly the same share of total wealth as they do of total income.

High income Canadians, in line with an increasing share of total income, have been paying an increasing share of total personal income taxes. Their share of total income increased from 21% to 25% between 1992 and 2004 while their share of income taxes paid increased from 30% to 36%. At the same time their effective tax rate dropped from 29% to 27%. Thus despite lower tax rates the increase in incomes was large enough, when combined with the progressive tax system, to result in an increased share of total taxes paid by high income Canadians. There is considerable heterogeneity in effective tax rates at the individual level with some high income individuals facing an effective tax rate of over 45%, while some pay as little as 10%. The proportion of tax filers, across the income distribution, who pay zero taxes decreased between 1992 and 2004.

Description:

Major changes in the wealth structure have taken place over the last two decades. Between 1984 and 2005, virtually all population subgroups experienced a greater increase in average wealth than in median wealth, suggesting that Canadian families are becoming increasingly unequal in their capacity to deal with income shocks. The increase would have been even greater without the marked aging of the population.