I was reading a bunch of news reports about the median net worth of people in Canada and the US. A recent CNN report said that the US lost about 23% of wealth, so their median net worth went from $125,000, before the Economic Crisis, to about 95,000 now (sure a far cry from the million dollar portfolios we see in the CFA case studies huh) Then, the Globe and Mail had a report saying that the Median household net worth was about $181,000 or so. Up from about $170,000 from 2010 which was still recovering from the financial crisis. So, if that is correct, the Median Canadian household is twice as wealthy as his US counterpart, considering that the US dollar is actually at a discout vis a vis the Canadian dollar, the Canadian guy is sitting pretty while his US neighbour is shaking his fist and probably sending letters to congress to invade north. However, I believe that this is due to 2 factors 1/ The US has had a massive housing correction, Canada has not YET 2/ A large part of Net worth in Canada is due to overinflated housing prices. More specifically, a good chunk of that extra net worth is due to a grossly overinflated housing market in Vancouver which has been bloated with Asian money. I would be open to hear theories about this. Feel free to add your input and thoughts. P
too many ways to calculate net worth. need a comparison using same calculation and possibly source. wouldnt surprise me though.
must be higher percentage of charterholders in Canada vs US, eh?
jamc is right, can’t be grabbing random soundbites from different sources and drawing inferences during 2010, you could have calculated “median” in july (S&P low) or in april (S&P at high) and that alone would have added 10%-15% difference to the median what are the effective dates of the two calculations? are they inclusive / exclusive of RE? that number for the U.S. looks like it doesn’t include RE in fact, the 95K couldnt possibly include RE, because average price of a house in the states is around 200K or so