The median income before taxes of Canadian families, at $55,000, remained essentially unchanged from 1990 to 2000 after adjusting for inflation, according to new data from the 2001 Census.

Statistics Canada said Tuesday that incomes of families in the bottom half of the income distribution showed little or no improvement through the 1990s. “However, the 10% of families with the highest incomes experienced substantial gains,” Statscan said. “In 2000, the combined income before taxes of the 10% of families with the highest incomes accounted for 28% of total family income; in 1990, they accounted for 26% of all family income. The 10% of families with the lowest incomes made up less than 2% of all family income, the same as in 1990.”

Census data also showed that the proportion of total income among working-age families that came from government transfer payments declined to 5.6% in 2000 from 6.4% in 1990.

Based on before-tax income, an estimated 19% of children were living in low-income families in 2000. This proportion was virtually unchanged from a decade earlier.

Unlike the results from the 1981 and 1991 censuses, the low-income rate was lower among seniors (aged 65 and over) than among children in 2001. Among the population of seniors who were not institutionalized, the low-income rate based on income before tax declined from 20% in 1990 to 17% in 2000. This continued a long-term downward trend that has seen low income rates among seniors nearly cut in half over the past two decades.

Lone-parent families with children aged 17 and under made particularly big gains between 1990 and 2000, the result of greater labour market activity and increased government transfers. In 2000, the median income of these lone-parent families was $26,000, up 19% from $21,800 in 1990.