Normal people donotmake thatmuch / MSN Finance - Surprise! We don't make that much money

Take this incontext of the rapidly expanding 100,000 $ club of government employees.PR

Savings & Debt John Caspar - Sympatico / MSN Finance - Surprise! We don't make that much money: "Surprise! We don't make that much money
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By John Caspar
April 04, 2007
Last week, I regaled you with some interesting data from the good folks at Statistics Canada regarding retirement savings. That was all about what we save. This week, let's talk a little bit about what we make. Specifically, how much money are people making out there, and where do you stack up?
All the data here is for the 2004 calendar year, which is the most recent income data available.
Just so you can brace yourself, we'll start with median total income. The median is the mid-point, where half the included population is higher, and half is lower. “Total income” in this case includes income from employment, investment, government transfers, private pensions, registered retirement savings plans and other income. You know. Total. And the median total income for Canadians with an income was…$24,400. If you made more than $24,400 in 2004, congratulations, you were in the top half of income earners.
Now, before you calculate that fully half of Canadians work for less than $12.20 an hour, bear in mind that “total income” will capture part-time employees, after-school student jobs, etc. Those people will pull down the average with a low income that may not be representative of hardship. That being said, the bottom half of total income earners is also populated by people who are out of the work force and living on low incomes provided by pensions and government benefits. Many of those people do indeed have financial hardship.
The median employment income for Canadians in 2004 was $25,400. That's just counting the working folks.

Now, before you calculate that fully half of Canadians work for less than $12.20 an hour, bear in mind that “total income” will capture part-time employees, after-school student jobs, etc. Those people will pull down the average with a low income that may not be representative of hardship. That being said, the bottom half of total income earners is also populated by people who are out of the work force and living on low incomes provided by pensions and government benefits. Many of those people do indeed have financial hardship.
The median employment income for Canadians in 2004 was $25,400. That's just counting the working folks. The highest median employment income by province was the Northwest Territories by a wide margin ($35,400), followed by the Yukon ($28,300), Ontario ($27,900) and Alberta ($27,500). Newfoundland was the lowest at $17,000.
But let's move back to total income for Canadians, and climb further up the scale to see where the meat is. Let's move all the way up to where about 2/3rds of individuals have lower incomes. In 2004, you were in the top third of incomes if you made more than…are you ready? $35,000.
I know what you're saying. Let's go higher! Okay, let's move up to the top quintile line. At this level of income, 80 percent of people made less than you. The number? Only 19.8 percent of Canadians with an income made $50,000 or more in 2004.
Now, although a bit over 12 percent of individuals had incomes between $50,000 and $75,000, the atmosphere thins out pretty quickly above that. Only 7.6 percent of people had incomes of $75,000 or more in 2004. Only 3.4 percent made $100,000 or more. And by the time we get to the $150,000 or more category, we're down to just 1.3 percent of income recipients.
People with 2004 incomes of $200,000 or more were a rounding error: only 0.7 percent made $200,000 or more. And you can be 99.5 percent sure that any randomly selected Canadian earned less than $250,000.

Those are the stats for individuals. The nice folks at Stats Canada also track the incomes of various family groupings, so we can get an idea of where entire households compare by income. “Couple families” are couples (married or common-law, including same-sex couples) living at the same address, with or without children. No singles or lone parents are included. The median total income from all sources for all members of such families in 2004 was $64,800. Less than a quarter of such households had total incomes of $100,000 or more. And just over 8 percent had incomes of $150,000 or greater.
So, there are the stats, and that's what we make. Now, consider some of the implications of this information. If there were folks who made $50,000 a year and didn't feel like they were making enough to get by (and there are), it would be useful for them to consider that based on 2004 figures, 80 percent of Canadians with an income make less. If their individual income was close to $65,000, that would be enough to push them into the top ten percent of incomes received by Canadians just two years ago. Ninety percent of the 23.4 million people with an income in Canada made less. If they felt they weren't getting by at an income level that's higher than that of the vast majority of the people in one of the richest countries in the history of the world, do they have an income problem? Or is it a problem related to something else, like choices or expectations?
Looking at the statistics of what we all make, it looks like it couldn't just be the money.
Th"