One of the earliest Upshot articles attracted a lot of attention in Canada. David Leonhardt (who has since joined Opinion and become one of the The Times’s columnists) and Kevin Quealy worked with a research group to analyze middle-class incomes around the world. Their finding: Sometime around 2010, Canada snatched from the United States the distinction of having the world’s most affluent middle class. Along with David, I spoke with Canadians about their economic hopes and disappointments.

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Both sides of the border have experienced economic changes, for better and worse, since then. Canada’s unemployment rate of 5 percent is a decades-long low. But the employment outlook is not uniformly bright across the country. In Alberta, where I went to report on the provincial election earlier this month, low oil prices continue to drag down the energy industry, the province’s leading employer. And earlier this week I was in my hometown, Windsor, Ontario, where Fiat Chrysler Automobiles will eliminate a third shift at its minivan plant in September and lay off about 1,500 people.