It’s not only the poor that are getting poorer. So are the rich. The latest assessment of the worth of Canadians is a picture of a nation whose citizens are seeing their overall wealth or net worth fall.
It doesn’t matter whether you’re rich or poor – everyone is caught in the spiral – although those at the low end of the scale are being hit proportionately harder.
The culprit is falling real estate values, which represent a big piece of the average person’s wealth. And it doesn’t even help renters because higher interest rates are more than offsetting falling property values which, in theory, could reduce rental rates. A lower valued apartment, for example, should rent for less but higher interest rates wipe out that potential by elevating rents.
Those at the low end of the wealth scale – generally younger people – are feeling the pinch of falling property values most because they tend to hold less equity than older or wealthier home owners as they saw their net worth decline by 14 per cent in the last year.
