Although, there has been some dispute about the usefulness of the 2011 National Household Survey (NHS), which replaced the long-form census by Statistics Canada, there were a couple of interesting findings.  The NHS has shown that the wealthy Canadians, which comprised 10% of the population, paid 42% of all income tax. More than half of the income received by the poorest 20% of Canadians (seniors and single women with children) came from pension plans, Guaranteed Income Supplements, Old Age Security, welfare, insurance or other benefit programs. The NHS revealed that seven out of ten Canadians receive some type of government transfer, but only 13% relied on this payment as their only source of income.

88% of Canadians obtained their income from private means and while most will retire at the age of 65, others will continue to work well beyond that point. The average income of an individual in Canada stands at $38,700.