The curious absence of class struggle - G&M

This article appears in the Saturday, January 5, 2008 edition of the Globe and Mail.

The curious absence of class struggle
It's not so much the rich getting richer; it's the very, very rich

PETER J. NICHOLSON
From Saturday's Globe and Mail
January 5, 2008 at 9:00 AM EST

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? read more......