Canada's richest 1% have names like the Thomsons, the Westons and the Irvings. They occupy a stratum of about 261,000 people who reap about one-tenth of total earnings in the country.
But what of the remaining 99%?
In keeping with a recent Oxfam International report that projected that more than half of all wealth will fall under control of the most prosperous one per cent by next year, Canada's billionaires can expect to get richer than ever.
But so, too, should a tranche of the 99%, some economists say, citing recent Statistics Canada data trends.
Good news for the financial outlook of the 99% is a matter of perspective, said Philip Cross with the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, a research centre headed by a former president of the conservative Civitas Society.
Out of Statistics Canada's five income groupings, the highest-earning 20% of tax filers made an average of $87,800 in after-tax income in 2011, up 2.4% from $85,700 in 2007.
Topping that group, Canada's one-percenters earned at least $191,000 per year, Statistics Canada says.
In the same period, earners in the third quintile — a segment that could be slotted within the middle class — took in $39,900 in 2011, up 3.9%. Collectively, the three arguably middle class subgroups increased their earnings by an average 3.6% in that four-year period.
The cutoff for qualifying as the poorest half of Canadian tax filers in 2012 was $31,000, according to David Hulchanski, the principal investigator at the University of Toronto's Neighbourhood Change partnership.
Meanwhile, the median income of the bottom 50% was just $15,300 in 2012, he said.
