Billionaire Blindspot
3 min read · April 12, 2024
New Power Labs
Tl;dr: Social Capital Partners released the Billionaire Blindspot report, exposing Canada's significant wealth gap and urging policymakers to address inaccuracies in data collection to better understand and tackle wealth concentration.
Wealth is a barometer of economic health, social cohesion, and opportunities for everyone in Canada. What if our understanding of this crucial metric is flawed? In Canada, official data understates the severity of Canadian wealth inequality.
Social Capital Partners – led by one of our advisors, Jon Shell – published the Billionaire Blindspot report last week, revealing the stark wealth gap in Canada.
The report, authored by Dan Skilleter, Director of Policy at Social Capital Partners, highlights a common misconception that wealth inequality is less severe in Canada. By synthesizing a variety of independent and academic studies, the numbers tell a different story:
The top 1% owns 26% of Canadian wealth, while in the US it’s 35.7% (with StatsCan’s estimates placing it at only 17.3%).
The top 0.1% owns 12.4% of Canadian wealth, while in the US it’s 16.2% (with StatsCan’s estimates placing it at only 3.9%).
StatsCan’s data is misleading due to methodological shortcomings, which limits our awareness of wealth concentration in Canada, and what to do about it. The report outlines 3 recommendations for the federal government and Statistics Canada:
Create new tiers within the Survey of Financial Security (SFS) to capture the wealthiest Canadians, mirroring US practices.
Revise how wealth inequality data is presented, including tracking the wealth shares of the top 0.1% and 1%.
Deploy the SFS more frequently to provide a more accurate depiction of wealth distribution trends.
Understanding wealth disparities is essential to foster a fair and inclusive society and to ensure sustainable economic health and social cohesion across Canada.
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