Older Canadians are the most financially secure people in the country — and the least. That’s according to Statistics Canada’s recently released “Survey of Financial Security,” its first since 2019, which provides a detailed snapshot of the financial health in residents of all 10 provinces in 2023, the most recent year for which numbers are available.
The survey found that Canadians aged 55 to 64 years who have both a principal residence and an employer-sponsored pension plan have the highest net worth in Canada, a median about $1.4 million higher than those who have neither.
Aging renters without pension plans had the lowest net worth of any group, a median of only $11,900.
Meanwhile, families where the highest income earner was under 35 years old experienced the largest increase in their real median net worth from 2019 to 2023, up 179 per cent. The biggest gainers were young homeowners, who increased their net worth by $142,800 from 2019 to $457,100 in 2023.
The median net worth of younger families without a principal residence was only $44,000 in 2023, and of those with neither principal residence nor employer-sponsored pension plan it was $27,000.
With rising house prices shutting some families out of the housing market and employer pension plans becoming a thing of the past, some young families are building their wealth in other ways. Of those, 15 per cent had net worth greater than $150,000 in 2023, compared to five per cent in 2019, and held assets in:
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- Real estate that was not their principal residence (median $350,000);
- Registered Retirement Savings Plans (median $35,000);
- Tax-Free Savings Accounts (median $20,000).
