People in Saskatchewan are not big savers — at least not as big as previous generations. Or maybe it’s just the choices we make to accumulate savings.
Ottawa has just released how much you and I contributed to RRSPs for the 2022 tax year. Numbers for last year haven’t been tallied yet because the tax deadline for 2023 is still weeks away.
Nonetheless, our 2022 performance lagged the previous. Twenty per cent of Saskatchewan tax filers chose to contribute to the RSP in 2022 which was a lower percentage than the previous year. Incidentally, that tracked pretty much parallel to the overall national rate as people are gradually moving away from the RRSP as new vehicles such as the TFSA provide alternatives.
Overall, Saskatchewan residents contributed just under $1.2 billion to their accounts in 2022 which is down 1.4 per cent compared to the previous year. And the median contribution was $3,000 – that didn’t change.
But the headline is that fewer people – about 170,000 of us – chose this option for retirement saving. That represents a 1.6 per cent decline which was the second-largest reduction in the country.
