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If Canada is not a high-tax country, why does the average family pay more in taxes than on food, clothing and shelter combined?

The Fraser Institute, which released these figures in its latest study on the subject, has been tracking the tax bill for years. Whereas in 1961, a typical family spent 56.5 per cent of its income on necessities and 33.5 per cent on taxes, today the figures are 37.6 per cent and 42.4 per cent respectively.

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It should come as no surprise that necessities require less of our income today than half a century ago. The economy has grown dramatically in that time. And while the benefits of this growth have been uneven, it is nevertheless clear that, once the bills are paid, the average person has more left over than he or she used to.

The study notes that the cost of food has risen 645 per cent. A six-fold increase may seem like a lot, but much of the increase is the result of inflation, which, measured by the Consumer Price Index, has risen 706 per cent since 1961. So the apparent increase in the food bill is actually a decrease: since the average family’s income has risen, according to the Fraser study, by 1,612 per cent since 1961, the share of its budget spent on food has fallen by nearly half.