Canada’s middle class surpasses that in the U.S., says New York Times report

680News ^ | Apr 22, 2014 | The Canadian Press and Julian Beltrame, The Canadian Press

[Bruce Kurtz]

yea, but they have a lot of additional taxes to support their social programs

[Haiku Guy]

You know you suck when Canada is kicking your ass...

[zipper]

I read most of the NY Slimes article — it was more propaganda in support of “income redistribution”.

They mention after-tax income but I don’t think that accounts for the Canadian VAT.

I was in Montreal recently but had left my jeans at home. So I went to Sears and bought some plain-looking Levi 505’s. The price? Even at the sale price of 40 percent off, they cost me 54 US dollars!

Next time I’ll remember to pack my jeans.

[ronnie raygun]

Thank the rat party with gop help

[x]

This is news? Obviously Canada’s middle class isn’t numerically larger than America’s, but why would anybody think that a larger percentage of Canadians couldn’t be “middle class” (whatever that means) than Americans?

[rottndog]

A lot of this has to do with the fact that Canada is gung-ho in exploiting it’s natural resources, specifically oil and timber.

[MeganC]

Exactly. Their net income is still lower than ours. At least for now. I'm sure there's a committee of Democrats somewhere who are working to fix that problem.

[Extremely Extreme Extremist]

Their beer and liquor is better than ours, too.

[trisham]

It’s a socialist country.

[Zhang Fei]

Canada takes in skilled immigrants. We take in produce pickers so the crops won't rot in the fields. God forbid we import our produce instead of unskilled immigrants. Heck, why not impose tariffs on imported produce if all we want to do is keep domestic farmers in business? It would certainly be cheaper than importing millions of unskilled workers along with their welfare-eligible families.

[A Formerly Proud Canadian]

Staying classy, eh!

[aMorePerfectUnion]

I’ve also read that Chileans have a higher average net worth than Americans now...

[aMorePerfectUnion]

“This is news? Obviously Canada’s middle class isn’t numerically larger than America’s, but why would anybody think that a larger percentage of Canadians couldn’t be “middle class” (whatever that means) than Americans?”

There are three kinds of people. Those who are good at math and those who are not.

[deadrock]

Which country in the Western world isn’t?

[Haiku Guy]

Just like there are 10 kinds of people, those who get binary numbers and those who don’t.

[nascarnation]

I assume a big influence is national debt.

Since every US citizen starts with $55,000 negative net worth just with their share of the national debt.

Chile has about $2200 per person debt.

[taildragger]

A lot of this has to do with the fact that Canada is gung-ho in exploiting it’s natural resources, specifically oil and timber.

Until George Soro's works his magic up their with his environmental justice type group, oh yes, I hear he is up their.

Also their balanced budget over a number of years didn't hurt. I wonder if their environment of no Home Mortgage Deduction helped and do they or don't they have an internal Trojan Horse aka the Community Redevelopment Act and do to them what it did to us as they had no collapse like we did in 2008...

[aMorePerfectUnion]

“I assume a big influence is national debt.”

Chile privatized ownership of their Social Security system 30 years ago. Each Chilean owns their account. We don’t.

Nor do we know if we will get it.

[nascarnation]

As an American I can only dream about how that SocSec account would look today if my 42 yrs of “contributions” had been invested at market benchmarks....