Canada's standard of living falling behind other advanced economies: TD
Canada's standard of living falling behind other advanced economies: TD
A new economic report from TD says Canada is falling behind the standard-of-living curve compared to its peers.
While in no way intending to minimize the economic hardship inflation has had on Canadian’s lives, to be clear, this is ‘standard of living’ defined as real GDP per capita.
That is it measures the arithmetic mean or average of what the economy produces adjusted for general inflation. It says nothing about how income or wealth is distributed or other key factors that determine wellbeing at an individual, household or societal level.
This is not generally viewed as the best measure of quality of life or societal wellbeing. Critics from across the political spectrum globally have been critical of the focus on GDP per capita for decades. It says something that TD as a bank is still focused on it.
The OECD Finance Ministers adopted a Wellbeing Framework to measure and compare across countries. Canada has its own version that StatsCan is reporting on.
Thanks for pointing that out! GDP figures are easy to collect and analyze which is why economists like them so much, but you're absolutely right that they don't show the entire picture.
For wealth inequality, the Gini Coefficient is a common measure. In the linked wiki article you can see Canada is in line with the UK and Germany for being middle of the road whereas places like US, Russia, and Saudia Arabia have incredibly high income inequality.
The OECD Wellbeing Framework uses both the GINI and a measure of health disparities (differential in life expectancy) as measures of equity.
There is a significant consensus that if a country were to look at a single measure alone, trends and changes in life satisfaction would be the best one. For comparisons between countries, it’s less helpful though.
The standard of living is falling because the massive middle class is being looted by the .01%. Trillions of dollars have been funneled up to the ultra rich during the pandemic and afterward, and nothing is trickling down.
And governments around the world are enabling and assisting it, including in Canada at the federal and provincial (and municipal) levels.
"Middle class" is a myth the ruling class uses to keep the working class in the working class. If you don't own your own means of production, and you don't wield political power, you're working class.
Some kids where I live have pediatricians. My 1 yr old son sees a public health nurse for vaccines, goes to emergency when something is wrong and i sneak him in for checkups when I have an appointment with my nurse practitioner, because pediatricians (and doctors in general) are in short supply.
$10/day daycare sounds great, unless your kid isn't already enrolled. Waitlists are mostly closed. I've called a dozen daycares at least and I'm on the waiting list for two, basically hoping for a string of cancellations.
This gap in the market has resulted in a boom of unregulated daycares in random people's houses! What could possibly go wrong with that?
Cost of electricity is going up. Not because of oil prices, but because ratepayers need to pay (and pay and pay) for a government/crown corp boondoggle. But don't worry, the people who pushed it all through can afford the rate hike, and solar panels and wind turbines and batteries to boot.
Some kids where I live have pediatricians. My 1 yr old son sees a public health nurse for vaccines, goes to emergency when something is wrong and i sneak him in for checkups when I have an appointment with my nurse practitioner, because pediatricians (and doctors in general) are in short supply.
Yeah. Canada has slipped to #11 behind Australia, New Zealand, and every scandinavian country. We could learn a lot from them, even if we're WAY BETTER OFF than so many other countries. I'm voting to ensure we get back in the top-ten.
$10/day daycare sounds great, unless your kid isn’t already enrolled. Waitlists are mostly closed. I’ve called a dozen daycares at least and I’m on the waiting list for two, basically hoping for a string of cancellations.
This gap in the market has resulted in a boom of unregulated daycares in random people’s houses! What could possibly go wrong with that?
I agree -- regulation and inspection of daycares and massive fines for those opening ghetto childcare is an important goal. We've had so many 'small governments' that ditch any kind of safety inspections on day one, and it's hard getting them back. It's a job almost as thankless as a medical professional in a blue province.
Cost of electricity is going up. Not because of oil prices, but because ratepayers need to pay (and pay and pay) for a government/crown corp boondoggle.
Yeah. WAY better than Texas in a snow storm. Or ... not.
Hey. we can still vote to make changes to how arms-length crown corps do their business. We CANNOT vote to change how enbridge works.
But don’t worry, the people who pushed it all through can afford the rate hike, and solar panels and wind turbines and batteries to boot.
Tell us your postal code starts with a T but we won't be surprised. You guys have been lied-to on all those points for way too long, and I'm sorry for how that must stress you.
I didn't mean to give the impression that I'm stressed. I was just responding to the topic with my own experiences. I think our current provincial government is doing their best with a bad situation. We are dealing with the lack of doctors by rolling out supposedly gold standard collaborative care, which seems like a great idea but we just don't have the money to support it properly. And as for our crown corp boondoggle, we voted out that government but we still have to pay for their stupid "legacy" project. And the high-ups on that project have already moved on to the next thing -- maybe they'll pick the least popular one to take the fall so they can check the 'accountability' checkbox.
My postal code starts with A, b'y ;) What about my comment came off as Alberta-y? In that context the tone of my post would be very different, I think! My own fault for leaving my province to the imagination :)
My standard of living has been declining for at least a decade.
Remote Native communities in Canada listening in to this debate ....
ITT: people confusing Standard of Living with Quality of Life.
Standard of Living with Quality of Life
For the current discussion, what difference is even significant? They're interchangeable in this context.
https://www.investopedia.com/articles/financial-theory/08/standard-of-living-quality-of-life.asp
No shit Sherlock. Food cost keep rising when grocery stores make record profits. Shrinkflation is the new trend to blind the unaware consumer. House and lodging cost is insane and the government is watching everything burn.
The hole is getting deeper ...
absolutely. gas, rent, and groceries just costs so much now, it’s terrible.
Watch your grocery shopping... it's incredibly frustrating and depressing. Everyday things like... say a flat of chicken breast from Save-On. Not so long ago that flat of meat was about $7-$8 for 1kg. Now you get 650g for $14. Every item you buy has dramatically reduced in size/weight and doubled in price.
Considering how GDP is measured, this is more a sign of the real estate slowdown and the collapse of the O&G/fisheries industries than anything else.
What's more worrying is the lack of growth in Ontario/Quebec, which should be the economic engine of Canada.
Indeed, as literally spelled out:
The report states that the decline is largely related to productivity. Regions like Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Newfoundland and Labrador, where the economy relies heavily on the exchange of commodities, used to have the highest GDP per person, TD says. Over the past ten years, however, their lead has been challenged. Following the pandemic, only B.C. and P.E.I. have been able to raise their GDP per person levels they had in the years prior to COVID-19, TD reports.
This is a headline just because there's this catchy tradition of saying "standard of living = GDP per capita" which is misleading.
Grocery and housing costs are getting out of control.
Have been for awhile, now it's just insane.
Watched a video with this lady showing how much things were in a small town in Alaska... Not far off the prices here in Vancouver.
Lived in the GVRD. Thought "this is way too expensive, everyone is saying Alberta is so much cheaper" so we put things in storage and went to Alberta. Six months in, we discovered...
After six months we moved back to BC. The small difference in housing costs made so little impact to our monthly COL, that it wasn't worth it. We paid WAY more for car insurance and electricity - so much so that any savings we saw in housing costs were totally eclipsed by other expenses.
They aren't getting there, they've been there for a long time. Housing was already starting to get ridiculous circa 2013.
Imagine failing to provide of the most basic of commodities to your population so that rich people and boomers can trade theirs like NFTs... while real estate agents and other assortment of critters are able to extract large fees on per trade basis because fuck you peasants, that's why!
But I'm sure its young people fault they can't save money, afford rent/mortgage and move out of their parents house. If things don't turn around soon I think a lot of young people will end up leaving this country in search of a life that isn't just scraping by.
Id be curious to know where it's better. I feel like this trend is bad in other countries, though maybe not quite Canada level yet.
Some other countries have cities with denser design and good urban planing and transit so even comparable rents and food prices can compete as car ownership isn't essential. The US has places far behind us in housing prices and tech sectors often pay higher salaries than in Canada.
You should eliminate it. The experiences of animals are real and matter. Their suffering is identical in nature to your own. It harms us when we take pleasure in cruelty and violence.
Reduction is also one of the best ways we can reduce climate change as it's something that can often be reduced by choice.
Plus climate change. I mostly cut dairy and meat and substituted things and it's kind of funny how going back tastes as weird after a period of time as it did when I changed away from it.
Great sentiment and all, but shit for all of us that have ibs (estimates are as much as 1 in 5 people). If I can't have animal protein I'd literally die, or have such a shit quality of life I might as well be dead
If y'all keep listening to conservatives and businessmen, you're going to catch down to the United States of America
This is what I'm talking about. This is the second line in an article that spends the entire time talking about a decline in economic growth as a proxy for standard of living. Changes in GDP don't mean shit if the wealth isn't fairly distributed
Aren't the conservatives talking about more proper wealth distribution though?
Never heard conservatives talking about anything like that, in any country. If they ever talk about it it's always bootstraps and tax cuts for the rich
Talking.. sometimes. Actively doing the thing they talk about.. nope.