In broad terms, the U.S. has higher disposable income than Canada relative to earnings, but Canada is closer than raw salary figures suggest because taxes and transfers narrow the gap. On OECD-style measures, U.S. disposable income per person is about USD 67,468 versus Canada’s USD 47,737, while average wages are also higher in the U.S.
What that means
If you compare disposable income to earnings, the U.S. still comes out ahead in absolute terms, but Canada’s gap is smaller than its wage gap because Canada’s tax-and-transfer system reduces inequality more. A Bank of Canada paper notes that Canadian incomes are lower on average across much of the distribution, but the difference is not uniform, and lower-income Canadian households can be better off than comparable U.S. households.
Rough ratio view
Using the OECD-style figures, the U.S. disposable-income-to-wage relationship is a bit stronger than Canada’s, because both earnings and disposable income are higher in the U.S., but earnings rise by a larger margin. In practical terms, that means Americans tend to keep more after taxes in dollar terms, while Canadians often retain a somewhat larger share of public-services-backed value from taxes.
