A worker welds at a steel manufacturing facility in Hamilton, Ont., in July, 2025.Chris Young/The Canadian Press
There was a time when young people in this country outearned retirement-aged Canadians. That time was long ago, and after a brief respite during the pandemic, the generational gap is widening once again.
On Wednesday Statistics Canada released its income survey of Canadians for 2024, revealing that the median aftertax income for Canadian households was $75,500 that year, more or less flat compared to 2023 after adjusting for inflation.
But beneath the top-line numbers the survey includes a breakdown of individual incomes by age group, and the numbers show that Canadians in the 65-plus category earn more than double those in the 15-to-24 age range, continuing a decades-long trend of rising real incomes for older Canadians versus largely stagnant earnings growth for those just starting out.
Put another way, for every $1 of income earned by seniors in 2024, younger Canadians earned just roughly 40 cents, a sharp contrast to the 1970s. The long-term trend of widening income disparity reversed during the worst of the pandemic, as layoffs and government support cheques skewed earnings, but that was only temporary.
A lot is going on behind the numbers. For one thing, as Canadians live longer, healthier lives, many are opting to work past the traditional retirement age, with a good number enjoying salaries that have grown steadily over the years.
In addition to employment earnings, the numbers also include other forms of income, including government transfers, retirement income and investment income. Many older Canadians enjoy reliable pension plans and have amassed sizable real estate and investment portfolios that generate rental and dividend income.
At the same time, youth unemployment since 2022 has soared to 14 per cent, further dampening earnings for that demographic cohort.
Individuals in only one other age category experienced a decline in real median income in 2024: 25-to-34-year-olds. That group has gone from earning three times as much as seniors in the 1970s to just 1.26 times now, the narrowest gap on record.
It’s a sombre reminder that incomes for both groups are falling further behind the oldest cohort in real terms, even as costs for housing have escalated out of reach.
Decoder is a weekly feature that unpacks an important economic chart.