Tweet misstates average Canadian family income

"The only thing that is broken in this country is that more than FIFTY PERCENT of families in Canada - take home less than $20k a year. Yes. OVER HALF," says a January 28, 2023 tweet with more than 80,000 views.

"In 2023. It is UNIMAGINABLE trying to live on that. And EIGHT MILLION FAMILIES are trying."

When questioned about the figure on Twitter, the post's author provided a screenshot.

"We often think of the average income of workers as being somewhere between $50,000 and $60,000 per year. But the fact is that there's a huge discrepancy between those who are making millions and the 50 percent of [adult Canadians] who are making less than $15,000 or $16,000 dollars a year," says text in the image.

An account affiliated with the leftist group Occupy Calgary amplified the same screenshot. The claim also spread to Facebook.

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Screenshot of a tweet taken February 6, 2023

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Screenshot of a tweet taken February 6, 2023

 

The text stems from an article published by TVO Today, a program produced by an agency within the Ontario Ministry of Education. The story includes an interview with John Peters, a research fellow at the Interuniversity Research Centre on Globalization and Work at the University of Montreal, about his book on income inequality.

But the article has since been corrected.

"An earlier version of this interview stated that 50 percent of adult Canadians earned less than $16,000," says a note at the bottom of the story. "In fact, the median income for Canadians in the bottom half of the income bracket is $26,000. TVO regrets the error."

Peters told AFP in a February 1, 2023 email that he "made the error of quoting direct statistics without confirming." He also said he was not speaking about current incomes in Canada, but rather those from the period 1990-2015 -- which his book covers.

While Peters apologized for "misstating" the figure, he said his research shows "Canada has a deep and widespread inequality problem."

When AFP contacted Statistics Canada for the most recent data on family incomes, the agency pointed to the 2020 Canadian Income Survey.

The survey shows "economic families" -- defined as "two or more persons who live in the same dwelling and are related to each other by blood, marriage, common-law, adoption or a foster relationship" -- in the bottom 10 percent of earners make $45,400 on average. But "persons not in an economic family" in the same decile make a much lower $14,900 on average.

"One could say that 50 percent of Canadian economic families and persons not in an economic family had an after-tax income of less than $66,800 in 2020," a Statistics Canada spokesperson said in a February 2 email.

More of AFP's reporting on misinformation in Canada can be found here.