OTTAWA-
Canadians will see today how government support measures such as the Canada Emergency Response Benefit affected incomes at the start of the pandemic.
This morning, Statistics Canada will release results from the 2021 national census that detail the number of people who received benefits related to COVID-19 in 2020 and how those benefits affected the bigger picture.
The income data consists of tax and benefit records from the Canada Revenue Agency and will allow for some of the most detailed analysis yet of labor force and prosperity trends during the pandemic.
Experts say earnings data will form a complicated pandemic-era snapshot, with CERB likely skewing earnings for the lowest earners upwards, but skewing earnings for another large slice of workers downwards .
They say older Canadians leaving the workforce, younger Canadians gaining greater labor mobility, and the expansion of the temporary foreign worker program are bigger, longer-term trends to to watch.
Statistics Canada will also release results on the changing composition of Canadian families, housing trends, and the country’s veteran and military population.
This report from The Canadian Press was first published on July 13, 2022.