By Carlito Pablo
With hard work and education, Filipinos are doing well in Canada.
A recently released government study on tax filings show that a lower percentage of Filipinos experience low income compared to most racialized and non-racialized populations.
The paper also indicates that Filipinos are second only to people of Japanese heritage in terms of having the least proportion of populations with low income.
Released on February 4, 2026, the study by Statistics Canada is titled “Who experiences persistent low income? A study of various demographic groups from 2016 to 2022”.
Authors Sharanjit Uppal and Travis Facette wrote that low income is an “important dimension of poverty”.
“Understanding poverty is crucial because of the broad and lasting harm it may cause,” Uppal and Facette explained.
Moreover, “Long-term poverty tends to have a cascading impact on a person’s life course and across generations: worse health outcomes, difficulty finding employment, more contact with the criminal justice system, and greater dependence on social support and assistance.”
For the study, Uppal and Facette looked at tax filers from 2016 to 2022.
The researchers found out that during the said period, 5.6 percent of Filipinos experienced “persistent low income”.
For comparison, non-racialized and Indigenous tax filers experienced persistent low income at rates of 6.9 percent and 19.7 percent, respectively.
Filipinos have a lesser proportion of experiencing low income than the overall racialized population (13.9 percent), South Asian (12.9 percent), Chinese (17 percent), Black (15.1 percent), Latin American (11.9 percent), Arab (19.8 percent), Southeast Asian (13.8 percent), West Asian (20.5 percent), and Korean (14.7 percent).
People of Japanese heritage have the least rate of low income at 4.9 percent.
Uppal and Facette also looked at the proportion of tax filers who exited low-income situations in 2017 and re-entered the same condition the following year in 2018.
The study showed that Filipinos “stood out” as having the highest proportion of people who surmounted low-income situations in 2017 at 39.8 percent.
For comparison, the rate for racialized peoples in general during that year was 30 percent; non-racialized, 30.5 percent; and Indigenous, 23.9 percent.
Filipinos also stood out because they have the lowest proportion of those who scaled low-income in 2017 but returned to the same situation in 2018 at 15.4 percent.
To compare, racialized populations as a whole faced a similar experience at a rate of 21 percent; non-racialized, 19.1 percent; and Indigenous, 29.6 percent.
The study states that education is “strongly associated with income”.
“A higher level of education is associated with higher income and hence a lower risk of low income. For many of the groups with the greatest risk of persistent low income, a higher level of education seemed to be protective, with a lower percentage of people in these groups experiencing persistent low income.”
Filipinos in Canada are well educated, with over 40 percent possessing a bachelor’s degree or higher, according to a Statistics Canada study titled “A portrait of educational attainment and occupational outcomes among racialized populations in 2021” and released on January 18, 2023.
Using labour data, a Statistics Canada profile piece about Filipinos on June 19, 2023 described Filipinos as “among the hardest working people in Canada”.
Titled “Filipino Canadian proud with a strong sense of belonging”, the article noted that almost four in five (78.6 percent) Filipino Canadians aged 15 years and older were working or actively looking for a job in 2022. That’s the “highest labour force participation rate among all Canadians and well above the national average of 65.4%”.
“Filipino Canadians had an unemployment rate of 4.3% in 2022, a full percentage point below the national average of 5.3%,” the piece also noted.
On a related note, tax season is around and Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) has released important dates and deadlines:
February 23, 2026 – This is the date you can start filing your 2025 income tax and benefit return online. For the early tax filers, make sure you have all your tax slips before you file:
Most tax slips are issued by employers or financial institutions by the end of February. If you have a CRA account, you can also get copies of your tax slips there, once the CRA processes them.
If you have not received your tax slips by the end of March, contact the issuers directly to get a copy.
Once you have all the necessary tax slips and documents, file as early as possible to avoid the end-of-season rush and the busiest time for the CRA.
April 30, 2026 – This is the deadline for most individuals to file their 2025 income tax and benefit return and pay any taxes owed. By filing and paying on time, you will avoid late-filing penalties and interest.
June 15, 2026 – This is the deadline for self-employed individuals to file their 2025 income tax and benefit return. If you are not self-employed, but your spouse or common-law partner is, you have the same deadline. If you owe money, you will still need to pay by April 30, 2026, to avoid paying interest.
ReyFort Media 
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