household debt

Julian Beltrame / Canadian Press

Canadian families have become wealthier over the past several years, with net worth rising despite the well-documented growth in household debt and a setback from the recession, a new Statistics Canada study shows.

In a report that takes a long view on the state of Canadian finances, the agency finds that the 2012 median net worth among family units — of two or more persons and unattached...

Don Curren / Wall Street Journal

If you divide Canadian families up into fifths in terms of net worth, the lowest quintile had net assets of about 1,300 Canadian dollars ($1,170) in 1999.

In 2012, it was actually below that; the overall worth of the lowest 20% of families declined 15.4% to C$1,100 by 2012, according to the “Survey...