I was curious about differences in doctors' pay across the country, so I graphed some data from the 2016 Census to see how provinces differed in median pay for specialists and general practitioners. #ableg #abpoli @Albertadoctors

First graph shows median employment income in 2015 for specialists across the country. In Alberta, median income was $139,418 for specialist physicians in 2015 -- higher than the median for Canada, but definitely not the highest across provinces.

Second graph shows median employment income in 2015 for general practitioners across the country. In Alberta, median income was $101,473 for general practitioners and family physicians in 2015. Again, higher than some provinces but less than others.

Now the question is how much are doctors paid compared to other workers?

Third graph compares specialists' median employment income to all workers. In Alberta in 2015, specialists earned about 3 times as much as other workers at the median, lower than the ratio for Canada.

Fourth graph compares general practitioners' pay to median employment income for all workers. In Alberta in 2015, the median general practitioner earned 2.2 times as much as the median worker, lower than most other provinces.

Now, importantly this comparison between doctors and all workers might not be that great because there are other factors like differences in education and work hours to consider. Let's include some of those...

Fifth graph compares income for a subset of workers -- full-year full-time workers between age 25 and 64 with a Bachelor's degree or higher. Compared to these workers, specialists in AB only made about 40% more at the median in 2015 -- one of the lowest ratios in the country.

Sixth graph compares income for general practitioners to all full-year full-time workers between age 25 and 64 with a Bachelor's degree or higher. Again the ratio is much lower with general practitioners only earning about 21% more than other workers at the median.

What's the take-away here? We learn that, yes, doctors in AB are well-paid, but so are doctors across the country and so are many other workers in AB. When compared to other salaries in this rich province, physician pay is not out of line as conservatives like to argue.

Final point: if the government considers high earners to be problematic and is concerned with high pay among doctors, an easy solution would be to create a more progressive tax system with higher marginal rates applied to high earners across the province. #ableg #abpoli #taxes

Unfortunately, I was unable to find publicly-available data more recent than the 2016 Census. If anyone knows of any please share! These differences also vary within provinces. If I have time tomorrow, I'll also graph that.