quote:

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Among Canada’s 1%-ers, senior managers and CEOs, the ritual target of Occupy, are overrepresented relative to their share of the population at large — but account for only 14% of the group. Who else is there? Yes, other financial professionals and executives, for whom the 1990s and early 2000s were pretty good, but physicians, dentists and veterinarians accounted for a full tenth of the 1%-ers, and they represent rather less than 10% of the population. Taken together, those with medical, dental or veterinary or other post-grad degrees account for almost a third of the high earners.

And, from an industry perspective, Prof. Fortin and co-authors observe also that 16% of the top group are professional, scientific and technical employees. They rather dryly note, too, that recent policy measures, such as a targeted tax on the rich, “would mostly target people who are neither top executives nor financial professionals.”

...The income shares, over three decades (in fact, since the early 1950s) have hardly budged, and the figure could almost be drawn with a ruler. Because I have used a broad income measure — income after tax [not measured by StatsCan], including capital gains — we can see a pop in the 95-99% share reported in 1994. That is because the federal government of the day rolled back, except for farmers and some others — the lifetime capital gains exemption that had existed since the last half of the 1980s. Those who had gains reported them then, because it was their last chance to get a healthy break on taxes on the taxable share of their wealth.

Another factor pushing down the reported earnings among the bottom 50%, is a sharp rise, a 10-percentage point rise since the 1980s, in the portion of the population turning up on the tax-filer database. This is because of the growth in refundable federal and provincial tax credits, eligibility for which requires low-income earners to file returns.

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Wow. My dad used to make around $150,000 a year, that's pretty close.

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One of the most important measures of the strength of a society, its peacefulness, and the happiness of its members, is the relative lack of extreme income disparity. Be glad you live in Canada. I know I am.

I'm making as much now as it took my dad to make in 25 years at his job.

Another interesting tidbit.. With the median income in the $28,000 dollar range, one would have to work for 15-20 years without eating, needing clothes, paying rent, paying utilities or paying taxes for that matter, in order to make enough money to buy a house in a major metropolitan area.

Petty cash, and forget the 1/4 of that, some are screaming minimum wage of $10.25 is too high

Most people are considered to be "overpaid" if they make 1/4 of that

Wow. My dad used to make around $150,000 a year, that's pretty close.

»fullcomment.nationalpost.com/201···tatscan/

Pretty low, imho.