Finally, some encouraging news for the little guy: while the latest StatsCan data shows the income gap between Canada’s poorest and richest widened slightly between 1999 and 2012, lower-income families benefited more from the housing boom. During that period, real estate’s share of total wealth rose to 57% from 46% for households in the bottom 20% income bracket, compared with just a six percentage point rise to 40% for those in the highest-earning quintile.

Sources: Changes in wealth across the income distribution, 1999 to 2012, Statistics Canada; Canada’s Wealth Distribution Barely Moves, Moody’s Analytics Research, Adam Goldin.
This post originally appeared at MoneySense.ca.
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