Broadbent Institute: Top 10% own 50% of Canada's wealth (Statistics Canada data on wealth)

Top 10% own 50% of Canada's wealth

The gap between people at the top of Canada's wealth pyramid and those at the bottom is widening and showing no signs of stopping, a major left-leaning think-tank says. 

In a report out Thursday, the Broadbent Institute looked at the most recent Statistics Canada data on wealth levels of Canadians. The data agency typically divides the country into five groups of 20% of the population, known as "quintiles" but the Broadbent Institute divided the number into deciles — 10 groups, each making up 10% of the population — for a new look at the data. 

Under that analysis, income looks to be distributed even more unevenly than previously thought. 

The report found that the top 10% of Canadians owned almost half — 47.9% — of all the assets in the country. 

The bottom half of the population, on the other hand, shares a total of 6% of the wealth. And the majority of Canadians own no financial assets at all, except any pensions they may have access to. 

Similar reports have made the claim that while the rich are, in fact, getting richer, the average person is also benefiting from wealth gains — albeit less extravagant ones. Statistics Canada's own data shows that the richest 20% of Canadians saw their net worth increase by 40.6% between 2005 and 2012 — more than any other group — while the net worth of the poorest 20 per cent was unchanged. 

The report adds fuel to the income inequality fire, noting that since 1999, all four of the poorest deciles in Canada (in other words, the poorest 40% of the country) have seen their share of total wealth decline. 

The share of total wealth for the fifth through the ninth deciles (the richest 40% to 90% of Canada) all saw their share of total wealth increase, by about one per cent each over the last decade and a half. 

The report also found that the wealth gap changes significantly across the country. The concentration of wealth for the top decile is highest in British Columbia at 56.2% and lowest in Atlantic Canada at 31.7%. 

And In all regions except Atlantic Canada, the bottom half of the population held less than 10% of all wealth.

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Apple Pay will struggle...

Company News Alert Retailers seen unlikely to warm up to Apple Pay (RTGAM) Tanya Agrawal and Anil D’Silva Apple Inc.’s launch of its own tap-to-pay system using near-field communication in its new iPhones and smartwatches may not be a game changer after all. The success of Apple Pay, unveiled at a gala launch on Tuesday, hinges on the willingness of retailers to use NFC-based payment systems, industry experts said.

  So far the technology, which uses wireless technology to transfer data over short distances, has failed to catch on due to the high costs involved. An NFC-enabled reader costs between $250 and $300. In addition to that, merchants also need to train staff and set up backend IT systems. Apple is betting on the popularity of its iPhones and the convenience and security of its payment system to prompt customers and retailers to make the shift.

The technology will allow iPhone users to pay for anything from office supplies to burgers at the tap of a button, using their American Express Co., Visa Inc. or Mastercard Inc. bank cards. But Apple first needs to swiftly add more retailers such as Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and Best Buy Co. Inc., which recently stopped accepting payments using NFC terminals. “At this point we have no plans to accept Apple Pay,” Best Buy spokesman Jeff Shelman said. U.S. retailers have been notoriously slow when it comes to adopting new payment technology.
They are already lagging in the adoption of payment systems that can read chip-enabled credit and debit cards, a move hastened by a massive data breach at Target Corp. last Christmas. Trying to convince them to move to mobile-based payment terminals can be a big challenge.

 “Apple’s tremendous failure [Tuesday] was in demonstrating anything that was merchant-friendly,” said Tom Noyes, chief executive of Commercesignal Inc., a data and payments company. “There is nothing they showed that wasn’t possible seven years ago. There’s nothing for the merchants,” added Noyes, a former Citigroup Inc. executive. Apple declined to comment.

RIVAL SYSTEMS Apple Pay also faces competition from Merchant Customer Exchange (MCX) – a consortium of retailers including Wal-Mart and Best Buy – which is developing its own mobile payment platform. MCX merchants account for over $1-trillion of consumer spending, or roughly a quarter of the total retail spending in the United States, Morgan Stanley analyst Smittipon Srethapramote wrote in a note to clients. Its members are currently prohibited from accepting all other mobile wallets. Some members have even flipped the switch on their NFC terminals.

 Mobile handset makers included NFC chips in about 300 million smartphones last year, a third of all smartphones shipped. The number of NFC-enabled phones is expected to touch 550 million this year, helped by Apple’s devices and an expanding number of Android gadgets, Gartner analyst Mark Hung estimated. Gartner Research had projected last year that the value of mobile payments by 2017 would be $721-million globally, with only 5 per cent coming from NFC payments.

 “The economics of NFC implementation for the issuing and acquiring communities have been a challenge, resulting in slow adoption of the technology,” industry association Smart Card Alliance said in a report published in November, 2013.