{"id":33037,"date":"2025-07-30T00:18:11","date_gmt":"2025-07-30T00:18:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/33037\/"},"modified":"2025-07-30T00:18:11","modified_gmt":"2025-07-30T00:18:11","slug":"canadians-are-experiencing-the-widest-income-gap-ever-recorded","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/33037\/","title":{"rendered":"Canadians are experiencing the widest income gap ever recorded"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The widening gap between low- and high-income Canadians has reached record-breaking levels, according to the latest <a href=\"https:\/\/www150.statcan.gc.ca\/n1\/daily-quotidien\/250716\/dq250716a-eng.htm?utm_source=mstatcan&amp;utm_medium=eml&amp;utm_campaign=statcan-statcan-mstatcan\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Statistics Canada report<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The report, released in July 2025, examined the income gap, which is \u201cthe gap in the share of disposable income\u201d between households in the top 40 per cent and the bottom 40 per cent, and the results were alarming. According to results from the first quarter of 2025, there\u2019s now a record-high income divide of 49 per cent between the two groups, even higher than the 43.9 per cent gap recorded during the pandemic\u00a0in 2021.<\/p>\n<p>The situation has worsened for Canadians in the bottom 20 per cent of the income distribution. Their disposable income grew by a mere 3.2 per cent as they saw their work hours get cut and their wages decline by 0.7 per cent. To add to that, their investment earnings fell by 35.3 per cent.<\/p>\n<p>Canadians in the middle 60 per cent of the income distribution saw their income increase by only 4.9 per cent.<\/p>\n<p>The rich are getting richer<br \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-2171869\" class=\"size-full wp-image-2171869\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/shutterstock_1943619082.jpg\" alt=\"canadians income\" width=\"2048\" height=\"1365\"  \/><\/p>\n<p id=\"caption-attachment-2171869\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">CHIAO WEN CHEN\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n<p>But the income disparity is far more evident when comparing low- and high-income households. Whereas Canadians in the bottom 20 per cent only saw their disposable income increase by 3.2 per cent, Canadians in the top 20 per cent of the income distribution saw their disposable income grow by 7.7 per cent, \u201cthe fastest pace of any income group.\u201d And they continue to hold the majority of the country\u2019s wealth.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMost wealth is held by relatively few households in Canada. The wealthiest (top 20 per cent of the wealth distribution) accounted for almost two-thirds (64.7 per cent) of Canada\u2019s total net worth in the first quarter of 2025, averaging $3.3 million per household,\u201d states the report. \u201cMeanwhile, the least wealthy (bottom 40 per cent of the wealth distribution) accounted for 3.3 per cent, averaging $85,700.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Canadians from low-income households are far more vulnerable to job loss. A <a href=\"https:\/\/www150.statcan.gc.ca\/t1\/tbl1\/en\/tv.action?pid=1410028701\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Labour Force Survey<\/a> shows that since 2023, unemployment has been increasing among Canadians aged 15 and older.<\/p>\n<p>That means more and more Canadians rely on lower taxes and <a href=\"https:\/\/dailyhive.com\/canada\/money-from-government-july-2025\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">money from the government<\/a> through benefit programs such as social assistance and employment insurance, to help reduce the effects of the loss of income.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The widening gap between low- and high-income Canadians has reached record-breaking levels, according to the latest Statistics Canada&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":33038,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[45,49,48,46],"class_list":["post-33037","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-business","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-economy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33037","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33037"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33037\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33038"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33037"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33037"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33037"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}