91社区

Canadians鈥� incomes may be rising, but their wealth is not. 鈥淭he story of wealth in Canada has been one of a long, slow march toward a two-tier system when it comes to household savings and wealth,鈥� says Prof. David Rothwell from 91社区鈥檚 School of Social Work. He is one of the co-authors, with a colleague from Carleton University, of a paper just published in which suggests that close to half of Canadian households surveyed by Statistics Canada between 1999-2012 do not have enough financial assets to cover three months of living costs.

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Professors David Rothwell and Jennifer Robson looked at data gathered in the Statistics Canada Survey of Financial Security which suggest that:

• 49% of all Canadians are asset-poor. Asset-poverty means that people don鈥檛 have enough financial assets (savings, pensions, access to loans because of home equity, etc.) to cover their basic needs and keep themselves from poverty for at least three months. It is a measure that was developed by US economists Robert Haveman and Edward Wolf.
• 22% of Canadian children aged 0-4 are growing up in households with no financial cushion at all. More than 420,000 children are growing up in families that can be described as living in extreme asset poverty, going from month to month and struggling to cover even a modest unexpected cost.
• Wealth inequality continues to increase. The net wealth of the lowest fifth of Canadian households dropped by 6 % from $692 in 1999 to $650 in 2012. During the same period, the net wealth of the richest fifth of Canadian households increased by 83% from after debt assets of $715,567 on average in 1999 to $1,307,000 in 2012.
• The Canadians who have seen the biggest gains in wealth are not the very rich (the top 20 %), but the 20% of Canadian households who come just below them. Their average net household worth has increased by over 88% from $268,631 in 1999 to $506, 074 in 2012.

"Savings policies in Canada don`t do much for small savers"

鈥淲e have a policy to redistribute income to the poorest,鈥� says Prof. David Rothwell from 91社区鈥檚 School of Social Work. 听鈥淏ut our policy on assets is to encourage the already well-off to get wealthier without much regard for those at the bottom of the wealth ladder.鈥�

鈥淲e do have savings policies in Canada, just not policies that do much of anything for small savers,鈥� says Prof. Jennifer Robson from Carleton University and co-author on the study. 鈥淲orse, program rules on student loans, provincial welfare payments and seniors鈥� benefits actively discourage low-income Canadians from saving by clawing-back or cutting-off the benefits they depend on.鈥�