We Are Falling Behind

In the months leading up to the pandemic Saskatchewan residents were punching below their weight class when it measuring how much money we make. And we also under-performed on the amount of tax we paid as a result.

StatsCan has just released the 2019 tax filer data. That was prior to the pandemic so is probably out of date but the agency says it will help inform decision making going forward.

What they found is that income levels were rising in this country and the top 1% did better than average when measuring income growth.

Here in Saskatchewan, we account for 3-percent of taxpayers in the country but we have only 2-percent of those who qualify for the Top 1% Club. To make that level, you have to earn more than $250,000 a year. $790,000 a year will get into the Top one-tenth of a percent category and it takes just $3 million to qualify for  Top one-hundredth of a percent status.

We did better in 2018 than we did in 2019 in this province as the number of Top One Percenters fell from 5,500 to 5.100.