So Canadian households are now richer on average than Americans, according to Stephen Marche.

On July 1, Canada Day, Canadians awoke to a startling, if pleasant, piece of news: For the first time in recent history, the average Canadian is richer than the average American. According to data from Environics Analytics WealthScapes published in the Globe and Mail, the net worth of the average Canadian household in 2011 was $363,202, while the average American household's net worth was $319,970. A few days later, Canada and the U.S. both released the latest job figures. Canada's unemployment rate fell, again, to 7.2 percent, and America's was a stagnant 8.2 percent. Canada continues to thrive while the U.S. struggles to find its way out of an intractable economic crisis and a political sine curve of hope and despair. The difference grows starker by the month: The Canadian system is working; the American system is not.

Marche calls Canada's superior model "a hardheaded (even ruthless), fiscally conservative form of socialism".

I couldn't find the study from Environics etc. The numbers don't seem to align with the Fed's recent figures (see page 17 of Changes in U.S. Family Finances from 2007 to 2010: Evidence from the Survey of Consumer Finances). The Fed looks at US family (not household) net worth in 2010 (not 2011). It finds a median net worth of $77,300 and a mean of $498,800--so I wonder about the definitions. Still, the main thing going on is pretty obvious. The net worth of US families fell sharply between 2007 and 2010 because of the collapse in US house prices. Median net worth fell by nearly 40%; mean net worth by nearly 15%. Canada hasn't had a house price collapse (though looking at prices in Toronto makes me want to say, "not yet").