Armine Yalnizyan had a great twitter debate with Andrew Coyne on poverty and inequality that Trish Hennessey storified here:Â http://bit.ly/QwHGJB

I think it bears repeating that GDP growth has far outpaced any growth in median and average incomes for Canadians, as you can see in the graph below. (2010 dollars, average and median income in $’s, GDP in $10,000 dollars.)

Also, average incomes are growing faster than median incomes. What does that mean? That means that incomes at the top of the distribution are pulling the average up, but the benefits of GDP growth aren’t reaching the majority of Canadian’s pocketbooks.

Given that high school drop rates have fallen over the past 20 years, and post-secondary certification rates have risen by 20 percentage points since 1990, to nearly 53% in 2011, one would expect that the increased education and skill of the Canadian workforce would merit an increased share of economic output. Instead what we see is stagnant median incomes and increasing income inequality.