From Toronto’s Globe and Mail: The curious absence of class struggle.
Statistics Canada reported recently that the earned income of the “average” Canadian — the so-called median income — was the same in 2004 as in 1982.
After we subtract inflation to keep the purchasing power of a dollar roughly constant, it turns out that median income, before taxes, did not rise at all over those 22 years. Yet during that same time the Canadian economy grew, in real per capita terms, by more than half.
But only the very well-paid — those above the 90th percentile of the income distribution — saw any significant increase in earned income; and the higher up the earnings ladder, the greater the growth. What has been going on?
Excerpt found at Bridging the Income Gap, Why Inequality is Hazardous to Your Health