Economists take a benign view of the impact of technological change on jobs, dismissing the "Luddite" view that technical progress can be a significant cause of unemployment. The core argument is that higher productivity (output per hour worked) drives increases in incomes so that demand rises, creating new jobs as old ones are destroyed.

That said, it has become the conventional wisdom that there are winners and losers from the new information based, digital technologies, and that these have been an important factor behind rising income inequality since the 1980s. “Skill biased technological change” is held to benefit the highly educated since technology generally complements cognitive skills, while it eliminates many less skilled jobs.

David Foot and Daniel Stoffman / The Globe and Mail

It’s rare for a book on economics to become a bestseller. It’s even rarer for a book by a hitherto unknown economist to reset the discussion among economists and policy-makers over a vitally important economic issue. But that’s what French economist Thomas Piketty did with the publication earlier this year of his 700-page tome, Capital in the Twenty-first Century.

Daniel Tencer / Huffington Post Canada

Canadians “vastly underestimate” the extent of wealth inequality in Canada, but would still like to see a much more equal society, according to research carried out for the left-leaning Broadbent Institute.

Kate Robertson / NOW Magazine

A new video by the Broadbent Institute shows that Canadians would be surprised at how big the gap really is between the rich and poor in this country.

Sara Mojtehedzadeh / The Toronto Star

David Akin / QMI

OTTAWA — They're richer than we think.

A new poll from the progressive think-tank The Broadbent Institute concludes that Canadians do not have an accurate picture of the difference between the amount of wealth controlled by the country's richest people and the amount controlled by the poorest.

Animated video shows what people think gap is compared to the ideal and actual wealth distributions

OTTAWA—Canadians vastly underestimate the wealth gap in Canada and want a much more balanced distribution. This is the key finding in the first-ever survey to ask Canadians what they think the wealth distribution is and what they think the ideal should be.

Jeremy J. Nuttall, The Tyee

Canadians are unaware of the size of the growing wealth gap in the country, a new report from the Broadbent Institute says.

Lauren Strapagiel / canada.com

Although the majority of Canadians are concerned about wealth inequality in Canada, a new report says they’re also underestimating the sizable gap between the rich and the poor.