TORONTO, Apr. 4, 2024 –Social Capital Partners (SCP) today released a new report documenting how wealth inequality in Canada is far closer to the inequality that exists in the United States than official statistics claim.

The report, entitled “Billionaire Blindspot: How official data understates the severity of Canadian wealth inequality”, critically analyzes Canada’s flagship wealth survey, the Survey of Financial Security (SFS), and outlines how its methodological shortcomings lead to significant underreporting of wealth inequality.

“Wealth concentration is getting worse in Canada, just like in the U.S. The difference is that Americans have the data they need to accurately understand, discuss, and propose solutions,” explains the report’s author and SCP’s policy director, Dan Skilleter. “StatsCan has already acknowledged the need for better data, and we hope that this report will encourage them to act on our recommendations, ensuring a more accurate understanding of wealth inequality in Canada.”

The report concludes that the top 1% in Canada own 26% of all wealth, and the top 0.1% own 12.4% of all Canadian wealth. These numbers are significantly higher than official estimates and are much closer to U.S. levels of wealth inequality than previously understood. The report concludes that the American survey, the Survey of Consumer Finance (SCF), does a much better job of measuring reality and presents a series of recommendations to improve the Canadian survey.

“Deep wealth inequality corrodes democratic societies and threatens economic resilience,” said Matthew Mendelsohn, CEO of Social Capital Partners. “The misleading portrait of wealth inequality in Canada undermines our ability to have an evidenceinformed debate about how to address growing wealth concentration. Canadians are telling ourselves a story about wealth inequality that is fundamentally wrong.”

“Wealth concentration is getting worse in Canada, just like in the U.S. The difference is that Americans have the data they need to accurately understand, discuss and propose solutions.”


Share with a friend

Related reading

woman types on calculator with papers and laptop open in front of her

How Canada’s tax system puts the wealthy above workers

Rather than using the tax system to prevent wealth concentration, our current tax system promotes it. Those who earn income from their investments have more income left over after taxes, allowing them to accumulate wealth more quickly than others. SCP Fellow Silas Xuereb explains how, south of the border, we are witnessing the consequences of runaway wealth inequality – billionaires use their media conglomerates to get political favours, exploit the instruments of the state to enrich themselves and, increasingly, secure political office. All of these trends are leading to the erosion of democracy and public policy that advances the interests of the wealthy at the expense of everyone else. If Canada does not rebalance our tax system to prioritize work over wealth, we may soon find ourselves on the same path.

Screenshot of Rachel Wasserman and James Li in conversation

Trump pumps private equity with 401k changes | Breaking Points podcast

Breaking Points podcast correspondent James Li sits down with corporate lawyer, economic analyst and SCP Fellow Rachel Wasserman to discuss Trump's executive order opening up 401k plans to private equity. Trends show that with rising interest rates and frozen exit markets, the private equity investment model could be under serious stress. So, what are the implications of making this type of investment available to retail investors and their retirement plans? Rachel walks James through how private equity works, what's so dangerous about the buyout-PE model and who might get left holding the bag. 

West of Centre A political podcast with Kathleen Petty

The problem with GDP per capita | West of Centre on CBC

New research by economist and SCP Fellow Gillian Petit estimates what Canada’s GDP per capita would have been over the past decade if Canada had kept our temporary resident numbers stable. On CBC political podcast West of Centre, host Rob Brown asks Petit to dissect the metric politicians love to wield. GDP measures total output, while GDP per capita divides that sum by the population. She explains that the simple math offers an easy snapshot, but can mislead when used alone. For a true read on prosperity, Petit argues Canada needs a broader economic dashboard that weighs productivity, fairness and long term well being.

Skip to content