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What’s Been Happening to Canada’s Middle Class?

From: The Age of Increasing Inequality

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Historically, Canada’s middle class has expected increasing prosperity from one generation to the next. Real hourly wages did grow strongly until 1981, when inflation control became the central priority of government and Canadian unemployment shifted up. Wages stagnated for twenty years, before Canada’s oil boom of 2001 to 2014 delivered some improvement. But the oil boom is now over and surveys of public opinion reveal substantial discontent with how much Canada’s middle class has fallen behind top incomes.

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Contributors

Lars Osberg

LARS OSBERG is McCulloch Professor of Economics at Dalhousie University with research interests in labour economics and income and wealth distribution. He received his PhD in Economics from Yale University and has published numerous articles in academic journals and seven books. He is past President of the Canadian Economics Association. He lives in Halifax, Nova Scotia.