Canada's booming resource sector has helped income growth in the country sharply outpace U.S. growth over the past seven years, according to a report issued Thursday.
In the report, Statistics Canada said real income per capita in the United States grew by 9.1 per cent from 2000 to 2006, while Canada real income per capita grew by 15.5 per cent over the same time period.
"This is exactly the opposite of the situation prior to the turn of the millennium, when commodity prices were falling and the Canadian dollar was depreciating," the federal agency said in its study.
Statistics Canada said that a two-decade downward trend in Canada's fortunes prior to 1999 — prompted by falling commodity prices and declining resource production as a percentage of world economic output — was reversed in very short order.
"All that changed with the commodity boom that Canada experienced after 2003. Export prices rose sharply, the Canadian dollar appreciated and prices of imported goods fell," Statistics Canada said.
In three short years, real income relative to the United States returned toward levels not seen since the mid-1980s.
While Canada has enjoyed a rise in real income, rising commodity prices in the United States have held back income growth, Statistics Canada said.
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