Income inequality in Canada has hit the highest level ever recorded as wealth becomes increasingly concentrated in fewer hands, says Canada’s statistics agency.

The gap in the share of disposable income between the richest two-fifths of Canadians and the bottom two-fifths grew to 47 percentage points in the second quarter of 2024, Statistics Canada reported Thursday.

That’s the widest gap recorded since 1999, when Statistics Canada first started collecting such data.

The gap was driven by the top 20 per cent of income earners, who saw the largest increase in their share of disposable income, the report said. That increase was driven largely by investment gains, which the statistics agency attributed to high interest rates.