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.
This is true for me. About 40% of my income came from investments.
The Statistics Canada report said that in the second quarter, the top 20 per cent of Canadians held more than two-thirds of the country’s wealth, averaging $3.4 million per household. By comparison, the bottom 40 per cent of Canadians accounted for only 2.8 per cent of Canada’s wealth.
This is massively skewed, probably well beyond what most people think and would intuitively envision. I’ve done some work studying businesses and their wealth distributions, what you see is the top 1% is 10x higher than the top 10%, 0.1% is 10x higher than 1%, etc.
Wealth generally creates power law distributions, as the factors that increase wealth multiply wealth, not add to wealth.
I don’t think our government can stop this, as most of my investments are US based. What we can do is try and drive better results for that middle 60% of households who are seeing lifestyle eroded by inflation and stagnant wages (while the floor of minimum wage shifts upwards).
We need to encourage more investment in Canada, and we need to encourage Canadian companies to pay more on-par with US companies. The fact that 60% of CS grads leave and Canadian companies are generally living 20 years in the past is a huge problem for our productivity. We really need bring back manufacturing and high tech work that improves productivity with high leverage.
Only gonna get worse if Poilievre ends up in power. It still blows my mind how much support that guy has.
Solid take 👍
My U.S. relatives: “But isn’t Canada a Socialist country!?!?!?”
yeah, right…
I wish Canada was as cool as Conservatives make us out to be
I want this as a bumper sticker
This is the best thing I’ve read all week
We pretend to be socialist while often being even worse in terms of capitalism, oligarchy, and monopoly. They threaten to take away the little bit of social services we do have if we ever complain or even acknowledge the flaws and exploitation in the system
in the second quarter, the top 20 per cent of Canadians held more than two-thirds of the country’s wealth, averaging $3.4 million per household. By comparison, the bottom 40 per cent of Canadians accounted for only 2.8 per cent of Canada’s wealth.
I’d love to see that broken down further. I’m guessing there’s a bunch of really rich households at the top that skew the average.
Without diving into the data behind this, I’m willing to bet that there’s a plateau around the $1 million mark, caused by simply owning a detached home in certain markets.
It’s a good thought, but I’d take that bet with you. Houses can be remortgaged, or alternately converted to a rental while you get a second place. I suspect any bump is pretty small because people just continue to accumulate if they can.
You can always find a smaller and vastly wealthier subset, right until you’re down to the single digits of people.
There’s no dividing line like some people imagine, though; it’s a continuous distribution that we’re all somewhere (lower) on. Probably because it’s produced by a random walk.
Wealth inequality is flashy and gets all the attention, but at least in the short term the income version hurts way more people.
I think we focus on wealth inequality lately because we’re all on the same page about income inequality, and also because a common argument against income inequality is that “but their income isn’t that huge, they just have investments.” Wealth inequality deals with that ackchyuallity.
You think everyone is on the same page about that? People hate on billionaires all the time, but seem to be way more nuanced about someone who just makes a lot from their actual job. (And mostly ignore or avoid people who make way less)
Are you talking about people in r/CanadaPost hating on posties for making more than minimum wage? 🥹
A actually haven’t been back to Reddit, but that sounds about right.
A good chunk of NIMBYism falls under there too. Middle-class Karen doesn’t want cheap apartments or a homeless shelter anywhere near her, but has no better suggestions. If she wins and you’re one of the people who needs that, it leaves you in a weird Kafkaesque limbo where you’re told you have rights, but you’re not really allowed to exist.
Makes sense and form that perspective you’re absolutely right. I wish people understood it’s better for them when someone else in the working class is paid more. But for that to be commonplace, the idea that people aren’t necessarily paid what they deserve has to take hold.
Note the article is from two months ago, on October 10, but it’s still relevant. I was confused when I saw Chrystia Freeland quoted.
