I think one of the challenges right now for a lot of folks is trying to square things that we hear, like the numbers you cited earlier about household savings being up, with the pressure that so many Canadians are very clearly facing in terms of pricing.
There was a poll out earlier this week that says over half of Canadian households are worried that they can't keep up. We know that before the pandemic somewhere in the neighbourhood of half of Canadian households were about $200 a month away from insolvency.
It's trying to square some of the different messages that we're hearing, and it seems to me that in part the answer lies in this other component that's a lot less talked about, unfortunately. The Parliamentary Budget Officer put out a report in December, or thereabouts, saying that 40% of Canadians right now are sharing 1% of the wealth that's generated in Canada, and 1% of Canadians own or control 25% of the wealth.
When we talk about average household savings being up, that can be a positive thing overall, on a macroeconomic level, but those averages can really hide some disparities, depending on where people fall in terms of their revenue category and their socio-economic status.
I'm wondering if you might explain to us how the Bank analyzes that component of the problem. Also, when we talk about optimism because of average household savings, to what extent is that skewed by some households having proportionately much larger savings and so many others still living paycheque to paycheque?