Jul 24, 2026
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Add us on GoogleRetirement headlines sometimes feel less than encouraging. You haven’t saved enough, your nest egg won’t stretch far enough and you may need to keep working — possibly indefinitely.
A growing body of research suggests the panic may be based on an incomplete picture. It’s one that leaves out home equity, workplace pensions and government benefits — things that make up a much bigger share of what a retiree actually has to live on than what a single account balance may suggest.
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For Canadians, that omission matters more than it might elsewhere. Canada’s retirement system leans harder on those other pieces, particularly the Canada Pension Plan (CPP), Old Age Security (OAS) and, for many households, the value of a paid-off home: here’s why.
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Your registered accounts probably understate your wealth
If you only scrutinize how much the typical Canadian has saved in a Registered Retirement Savings Plan (RRSP), the numbers can look thin. In 2023, only 21% of tax filers contributed to an RRSP at all, down from 24% in 2010, according to Statistics Canada. Those who did contribute typically put in a median of $3,420 to an RRSP-only account, or $6,500 to a Tax-Free Savings Account (TFSA)-only account.
Looking at savings balances alone, though, misses most of the picture. StatCan’s 2023 Survey of Financial Security found that Canadians nearing retirement — those aged 55 to 64 — who own their home outright and have an employer-sponsored pension have a median net worth of $1.4 million. Renters in that age group with no workplace pension had a median net worth of only $11,900.
In other words, your bank statement is a poor representation for retirement readiness in Canada, where home equity and pension entitlements typically make up a bigger share of your net worth.
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What government benefits are actually worth
CPP and OAS often get treated as an afterthought next to personal savings, but for many retirees, they’re the foundation the rest of your retirement plan sits on.
The average new CPP retirement pension for someone starting at age 65 in April 2026 was $877.01 a month, while the maximum was $1,507.65, according to the Government of Canada. Very few retirees hit that maximum — it requires close to 40 years of near-maximum contributions — which is why the average is the more realistic number for most households.
OAS adds another layer. For the July-to-September 2026 quarter, the maximum monthly OAS payment is $751.97 for those aged 65 to 74 and up to $827.17 for those 75 and older. Unlike CPP, OAS isn’t based on how much you contributed through work — it’s based mainly on how long you’ve lived in Canada after age 18.
Combined, an average CPP payment plus a full OAS pension can add up to more than $20,000 a year per person, before any RRSP, TFSA or workplace pension income is added.
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Why home equity also matters
For most Canadians nearing retirement, their home is the single largest asset they own. Yet when people tally up "how much they have for retirement," they tend to count only liquid savings and skip their house entirely, even though it's sitting on the other side of the same net-worth statement.
In practice, home equity can support retirement in a few concrete ways:
- Downsizing. Selling a family home and moving to a residence that is smaller or less expensive frees up equity that can be invested or spent directly, while also lowering ongoing costs like property tax, utilities and maintenance.
- A reverse mortgage. Products like CHIP allow homeowners who are 55 and older to borrow against their home equity without monthly payments — the loan gets repaid when the home is eventually sold. This comes with real trade-offs — interest compounds over time and reduces the estate left behind — so it's worth comparing carefully against other options.
- A home equity line of credit (HELOC). This option offers more flexibility than a reverse mortgage but requires ongoing interest payments, which only makes sense if there's income to cover them.
- Staying put, mortgage-free. Even without tapping the equity, not having a mortgage or rent payment in retirement is itself a major reduction in monthly expenses — arguably as valuable as an income source.
However, home equity isn't as liquid or flexible as an RRSP or TFSA. That's part of why it may get left out of any mental math. But for a soon-to-be retiree trying to answer "am I actually ready," ignoring it means understating readiness by a wide margin, especially for the large share of Canadians who own their home outright.
‘One-more-year syndrome’ isn’t unique
Financial planners have a name for the habit of repeatedly pushing retirement back to build a bigger cushion: One-more-year syndrome. It shows up when retirement savings feel like a moving target, or when an individual has an unclear picture of their own wealth — one that leaves out CPP, OAS, home equity and pension value. This can make the target look further away than it actually is.
That doesn’t mean personal savings aren’t important. Only 45% of the Canadian labour force is covered by an employer-sponsored pension plan or group RRSP, according to the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions (OSFI), the federal regulator that oversees pension plans. For everyone else, RRSPs, TFSAs and non-registered savings are doing more of the work that CPP, OAS and a workplace pension might otherwise cover.
Get your own number
Because CPP and OAS depend on your specific contribution and residence history, the only way to know your real numbers is to check them. The Government of Canada’s Canadian Retirement Income Calculator lets you estimate CPP, OAS and other retirement income sources, and compare scenarios such as starting your pension at 60, 65 or 70.
What this means for you
- Don’t judge your retirement readiness by your RRSP or TFSA balance alone. Add in CPP and OAS estimates, workplace pension value and home equity before deciding whether you’re behind.
- Get your CPP estimate through your My Service Canada Account. Know this number rather than guessing — there’s a big difference between the average payment and the maximum payment.
- Treat your RRSP and TFSA contributions as essential. If you rent and have no workplace pension, you’re missing the two biggest cushions many other retirees rely on.
- Run your numbers through the Canadian Retirement Income Calculator. Get the full picture before you decide to work “one more year” — you may be closer than the headlines suggest.
-With files from Melaine Huddart
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Rebecca Payne has more than a decade of experience editing and producing both local and national daily newspapers. She's worked on the Toronto Star, the Globe and Mail, Metro, Canada's National Observer, the Virginian-Pilot and Daily Press.
