REGINA — A new Fraser Institute study has found that the average Canadian family spent more of its income last year on taxes than on the necessities of life.
According to the study released Thursday, the average family spent 42 per cent of its income in 2025 on federal, provincial and municipal taxes combined. That was more than the 36 per cent spent on food, clothing and housing combined.
Grady Munro, senior policy analyst with the Fraser Institute and co-author of the report, said they were motivated to do this study to see how much of an impact taxes had.
“So right now in Canada, we see a lot of people, rightfully so, are concerned about affordability,” Munro said. “They're concerned about grocery prices. They're concerned about, you know, the price at the gas pump and that sort of thing. But what's missing from a lot of these conversations is actually the role that government taxes play.”
He said this 42 per cent figure has major implications.
“The average Canadian family earned around $121,000 in 2025. They paid $50,700 in taxes to federal, provincial, and local governments. And that's more dollars than they paid on food, shelter, and clothing combined. And so this tax burden is a major — it has a major impact on people's ability to make ends meet.”
Munro said they went all the way back to 1961 in terms of measuring how the tax bill has grown for Canadians.
“So what we see is that from 1961 to 2025, the average family's tax increased by 2,928 per cent, which is a very large, large increase,” he said.
In 1961, the report states, the average Canadian family was spending 33.5 per cent of its income on taxes versus 56.5 per cent on basic necessities.
“And so we've certainly seen that shift where since around 1992, the average Canadian family has spent more on taxes than it has on the basic necessities. And that's only gotten worse since then.”
As for the key takeaway from the study, Munro indicated it would be that governments need to recognize how much of a role the tax burden plays.
“Affordability is a huge problem for Canadians. Since 2019, we've seen grocery prices are up 30 per cent. All other goods have increased in price by 19 per cent. Governments, rightfully so, are concerned about helping Canadians address these challenges and helping them make ends meet. But the thing is that governments tend to approach it through new spending programs… What we suggest is that what they need to do is they need to recognize just how much of a burden government taxes are imposing on family budgets today. And rather than trying to design copious spending programs, maybe they need to look to lower the tax burden and actually just let people keep more of their hard-earned money in the first place.”
