INCOME INEQUALITY HITS RECORD HIGH IN CANADA
INCOME INEQUALITY HITS RECORD HIGH IN CANADA
Rich happy while everyone else pays
https://www.businessinsider.com/income-inequality-mental-health-crisis-money-life-expectancy-social-comparison-2024-2?utm_source=chatgpt.com
(This story is from Oct. 2024)
The gap between the country's highest- and lowest-income households reached a record high in the first quarter of 2025, Statistics Canada said Wednesday. (The government started collecting these stats in 1999, but these are probably the worst equality numbers for at least 70 years; income inequality in Canada has been getting steadily worse for decades as the very wealthy gain increasing control of our governments and media and use their power to gain more wealth for themselves.)
Income and wealth at the top are growing, driven largely by investment gains, record-high home prices and stock market values. Meanwhile, at the bottom, housing and food costs rise steadily while wages fail to keep up with inflation.
According to StatsCan, 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.
Also, the costs to a society of income inequality are very high. It impacts people’s health, happiness, and satisfaction. A book called The Spirit Level looked into this and found that in societies where there is more income inequality, one finds worse outcomes for:
physical and mental health
drug abuse
education
imprisonment
obesity
social mobility
trust and community life
violence
teenage pregnancies
child well-being
This issue of income inequality is seldom discussed in Canada, because of the tremendous political and media power of those with the most money—and it seems they don’t want issues like income inequality discussed too much.
