Canada’s income gap is rapidly widening: OECD
October 22, 2008
By Travis Lupick
Georgia Straight

A leading economic-development organization has singled out Canada as a country where a widening income gap is of particular concern.

In an October 21 media release, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development states that the over the past two decades, economic growth has favoured the rich more than the poor in more than three-quarters of OECD countries.

The release then goes a step further, highlighting Canada, Finland, Germany, Italy, Norway, and the United States as countries where income gaps have not only increased in seize between the rich and the poor, but also between the rich and the middle class.

The OECD is composed of 30 of the world’s wealthiest countries.

The OECD’s report, Growing Unequal?, analyzed all 30 countries’ performance in areas of development and poverty through the mid 2000s. The report took information into account that dates as far back as the mid 1980s.

An OECD note on Canada begins, “After 20 years of continuous decline, both inequality and poverty rates have increased rapidly in the past 10 years, now reaching levels above the OECD average.”

Highlights from that analysis include:

- Inequality of household earnings in Canada has increased more significantly over the last decade than in any other country included in the study save for Germany.

- Canada spends less on cash benefits such as unemployment and family benefits than most other countries included in the study.

- Over the last decade, poverty (defined as people who live on less than half median incomes) in Canada has increased for all age groups.

- If a person in Canada falls into poverty they are “likely to remain poor for longer than in most countries” included in the study.

- While poverty rates are high (averaging 12 percent) in Canada, fewer Canadian households struggle to purchase basic goods than in other countries.

- Social mobility is higher in Canada than in other countries included in the report….