Statistics Canada released data showing retired people today are generally in a better financial position than they were 40 years ago. . Happy retirementHappy retirement .This new information adds to previous studies, which showed seniors retiring now are the richest retirees in Canadian history, according to Blacklock’s Reporter..“After-tax family incomes of retirees have generally increased,” said a StatsCan report A Cross-Cohort Comparison of Economic Well-Being During Retirement Years. .“Someone 60 years of age in 2008 would have had a different experience than someone 60 years of age in 1990.”.The conclusions came from looking at the income levels of retirement-age Canadians at different points in time, specifically between 1984 and 2008..“For example, women aged 65 to 67 in 1995 had a median income of $38,200,” wrote researchers. .“By 2019, women 65 to 67 had a median income of $48,900. A similar pattern holds for men, with the only difference being higher income levels.”.Figures showed a typical 65-year-old man in 1984 had a median income of $42,400. A retiree of the same age in 2008 had an income of $55,200. Economic Well-Being credited private and public pensions, higher earnings and net capital gains, like housing prices..Some 59% of Canadian seniors own their own homes, by official estimate. A 2018 Access to Information memo at the department of Employment said seniors had a poverty rate below the national average..“Seniors have lower rates of poverty than the overall Canadian population,” said the Memorandum to the Minister of Seniors. .Researchers found that the poverty rate among retirees is 4.9% nationally, dropping to 3% in some provinces. That's is lower than the overall poverty rate of 10.6%..StatsCan, in a 2016 report Seniors’ Income From 1976 to 2014, calculated median income for retirees had grown 67% to $54,500 a year compared to 31% growth for younger families..In 2015, a Montreal-based think-tank, The Institute for Research on Public Policy, suggested in a report that benefits for seniors, such as property tax refunds, cheaper transit tickets, and other financial aids, should be stopped..“Services used by the aged should be financed in exactly the same way as services used by every other age group in the population,” said the report No Seniors’ Specials..“Everybody should be treated exactly the same way for the same services they use regardless of age,” author Harry Kitchen, 72, professor emeritus at Trent University, said in an interview at the time. .“If you continue these programs, what you’re essentially saying is we’re going to charge middle-aged people more in taxes and fees so we can offer you rich guys reduced fares and reduced taxes. I don’t think that’s implicitly fair.”
