Income Mobility or Income Equality?

87 percent of Canadians who in 1990 had incomes in the lowest quintile, in 2009 had incomes that placed them in higher quintiles. Of those in the highest quintile, 36 percent had moved to lower ones. All Canadians have been getting richer, the poor more than the rich; the middle class has not been losing ground. This information is derived by tracing the incomes of the same individuals through time, implying that income mobility in Canada is very high. It suggests the need for a serious re-examination of the conventional conclusions about the fairness of the income distribution that are based on surveys of different Canadians at different times