All Canadian political parties are promising financial relief for Canada’s middle class in the federal election, but who is considered middle class in 2025?
Moshe Lander, senior lecturer in the economics department at Concordia University in Montreal, says it’s subjective.
“There’s no common definition,” Lander told CTV Your Morning on Monday.
“The one that I use is if you take the median income, you line up everybody from lowest to highest, and if you take that median income and add 50 per cent and subtract 50 per cent that everybody that falls in that range is, let’s say, middle class.”
Who identifies as middle class?
In 2022, the median after-tax income of families and unattached individuals in Canada was $70,500, according to a Statistics Canada study released in 2024.
This income represents a 3.4 per cent decrease since the previous year’s study.
As well, the number of Canadians living below the official poverty line increased in 2022 from 7.4 per cent to 9.9 per cent.
However, more Canadians believe they are middle class when they are not.
A 2023 Pollara survey of 3,000 Canadians 18 and older found that 78 per cent of Canadians consider themselves middle class, including 39 per cent of those earning less than $20,000, and 92 per cent of those earning more than $150,000.
Lander says Canadians might feel uneasy defining their income as either low income or high income, making middle class easier to use.
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“A lot of people are just going to identify that, well, I am not as rich as I could be, and I’m not as poor as I could be, so, I guess I’m in the middle,” Lander said.
“That’s where you end up with politicians then trying to always appeal to middle income Canadians.”
Income, living comfortably
When asked to define middle class in their own words, Canadians mostly describe it as living comfortably, according to the Pollara survey.
However, Lander says throughout time, middle class was largely dependent on affording key items.
“The initial need to accumulate appliances, that you have a fridge, you would have a stove and then it evolved to a dishwasher and a washing machine and dryer,” Lander said.
“Then it became how many cars did you have? If you had two cars, then you were seen to be middle income. But, initially, two cars were the sign of a high-income family, so what used to be seen as normal just becomes mind-numbingly normal now.”
Nowadays, Lander says, when asked to define middle class, most Canadians would opt to say it’s defined on whether you can afford your rent or mortgage, an indication that you can live comfortably.
