1990s a good decade for the rich: Statistics Canada

OTTAWA - The rich got richer in the 1990s, while everyone else's before tax
income stayed just about the same, as did the number of children living in low
income families, Statistics Canada said on Tuesday.

The final installment of data from the 2001 Census shows the income of the
8,371,020 families across Canada was nearly unchanged from 1990 to 2000,
increasing less than $500 to $55,016.

Low income families saw little or no improvement in their finances through the
decade, but those at the top made their piles significantly larger.

Families in the top 10 per cent made 28 per cent of all the money earned in
2000. That's up from 26 per cent a decade earlier.

Those in the bottom 10 per cent accounted for about two per cent of all income,
about where they were in 1990.

The Census data show that about 18.4 per cent of children were living in low
income families in 2000, which is about the same percentage as 10 years earlier.
However, the 1981 Census showed 19.4 per cent of children in low income
households.

As for seniors, about 16.8 per cent of them live in low income situations.
Twenty years ago, the low income rate of people older than 65 was nearly double
that, at 29.8 per cent.

Single parents also did better through the 1990s, seeing their median income
rise 19.3 per cent to $26,008.

Statistics Canada defines a family as a married couple or a couple living
common-law, with or without children of their own, or a lone parent with at
least one child living in the same dwelling.

Single adults without children ? what the Census refers to as "non-family
persons" ? saw their median income top $20,000, up 6.9 per cent in the past
decade.



Written by CBC News Online staff

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