Average Canadian Now Richer Than Average American

  • 12 years ago
Average Canadian Now Richer Than Average American - as part of the news series by GeoBeats.

The US economic crisis in 2008 made a deep impact on the average wealth of Americans.

With the initial housing crisis and then increase in unemployment meant that we had lower liquid as well as non-liquid assets.

TIME notes that as a result of our reduced wealth since the great recession, an average Canadian today is richer than an average American.

So for the the first time in history, Canadians are wealthier than Americans — by more than $40,000, on average. In 2011, the average net worth of a Canadian household was $363,202, compared to $319,970 in the U.S..

Average net worth is calculating by adding your liquid assets like checking accounts, real estate holdings like your home and then subtracting any debt that you may have.

While the US housing prices came down substantially in the last 5 years, Canadian real estate has fared much better.

Also, unemployment rate in Canada is hovering around 7% while the US is around 8%. In June 2012, Canada's unemployment was at 7.2% while the US was at 8.2%.

Which country do you think will do economically better in future - United States or Canada?

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