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It’s been some days since the country’s finance ministers reached their “historic agreement” to expand the Canada Pension Plan, and we still have only the vaguest outline of what they historically agreed.

In the broad strokes, however, it would appear the contribution rate will rise by about a fifth, or one percentage point for employers and employees alike, starting in 2019, taking it to a combined 11.9 per cent of pensionable earnings.

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At the same time, the base to which the levy is applied is set to expand: by 2025, the upper limit, known as the Year’s Maximum Pensionable Earnings, will be increased by 14 per cent, on top of what it would have risen to by then (it’s indexed to the average industrial wage). However, we’re told a lower contribution rate will apply on the increment, perhaps eight per cent.

So exactly how much more you’ll pay in contributions is as yet unclear, but it’s a safe bet it will be about one-third, since that’s how much benefits are promised to rise — again, not from what they are now (a maximum benefit of $13,110) but from what they would have been otherwise. That’s enough to increase the replacement ratio (the proportion of pensionable earnings you’d receive in benefits) from one-quarter to one-third.