Last week, Andy Yan, the researcher and urban planner with Bing Thom Architects, gave a talk at SFU’s downtown campus, during which he asked his audience a question.

Where, he asked, did they think Vancouver ranked among the country’s top 10 metropolitan areas in terms of median incomes for those between the ages of 25 to 55 with bachelor’s degrees or greater?

“It was the first time in my career of giving lectures,” Yan said, “when an audience gasped at the answer.”

The answer was:

Dead last.

And Vancouver wasn’t just last: It was last by a wide margin.

Median incomes for Vancouver’s most educated residents were so distant from the rest of the country, Yan said, that the city was “in a solar system all its own.”

“I was so surprised by the numbers myself,” Yan said, “that I had to run them three or four times to make sure they were right.”

The national median income in 2011 for those with bachelor’s degrees or better, according to the figures Yan received from Statistics Canada, was $50,981.

In Metropolitan Vancouver, it was $41,981: exactly $9,000 less than the national median.

The metropolitan area with the highest median income in the country was Ottawa: not surprisingly, since it’s a city that feeds well and long off the public teat. Its median income for those with a post-secondary education was $62,202: more than $20,000 above Vancouver’s median.

And on down the list it went — Calgary, Waterloo, Hamilton, Quebec City, Edmonton, Toronto, Winnipeg and Montreal — all, in descending order, with greater median incomes for their most highly educated populace. Montreal, which was ranked closest to Vancouver, had a median income for those with bachelor’s degrees of $47,276, or $5,295 more than here.

Metro Vancouver is among the most educated areas in all of Canada. Just over a third of Metro Vancouverites have a bachelor’s degree or above: for all of Canada, one in four do. Somehow, all that higher learning in Metro Vancouver isn’t translating into income.

“We have all this human capital,” Yan said. “Clearly, people are investing in their education. But why aren’t people fulfilling their potential?

“Why is Vancouver dead last out of those 10 (metropolitan areas)? That’s the perplexing thing. I don’t know.

“And the issue is, also, why aren’t we talking about this? We’re always on the top of lists for livability. But I’m kind of concerned (with the question) of, how do we get to the top of lists where we’re economically flourishing? Are people so willing to take an economic hit to live here? Or are we now going to lose our most talented (people) because they’re not going to stick around?”

Could this have something to do with the types of degrees students are taking here in Metro Vancouver?

“You mean, all those theatre arts degrees out there? I don’t think so, because similar spreads would occur in the other metropolitan areas, and they aren’t. And this is a metropolitan area with top flight schools. It’s a mystery, frankly.”

Perhaps, Yan suggested, it could have something to do with the nature of the economy here as opposed to other metropolitan areas. Alberta has an energy industry that creates a lot of high-paying jobs and attracts head offices. Ottawa has an ever-expanding government. Toronto, Montreal, Hamilton, even Winnipeg, have more manufacturing than Vancouver.

The jobs they produce for the most highly educated in those cities may be of a higher quality, Yan said, whereas Vancouver — which Yan said is now about 80 per cent service oriented — has created jobs that don’t pay as well. (Or as Yan joked in an email, “just feel blessed you are being served by some of the most educated baristas in the world.”)

Metro Vancouver is blessed with sectors that do create high quality jobs, of course. The port and airport are world class. Our universities are among the best in the world. The mining and forestry sectors produce good jobs. But is that enough? Has Metro’s economy developed a soft underbelly?

“It really talks to the issue not just of quantity of jobs but quality of jobs.

“In this municipal election, perhaps there should be a discussion not just about housing, but how do we pay for it? What are the incomes, what are the jobs that will lead us forward, and how do we create those in volume?”

More Saturday.

pmcmartin@vancouversun.com

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