National Economy

[lio45]

Originally Posted by YOWetal

This is total nonsense. 40 years ago most graduates couldn't even get jobs. Vacations outside the province and even restaurants were rare for most.

And iPhones and avocado toasts were even rarer.

[casper]

Originally Posted by WarrenC12

I think this is all quite subjective and harder to quantify.

Personally I grew up quite poor, by my kids are on a totally different level. Like bottom quintile to top quintile. So when I try to compare experiences, I don't know what "typical" might be like.

I had hand me down clothes and we lived in shitty rentals. I remember friends with big homes, new toys, Disneyland trips and so on. But I don't know if they were solidly middle class or not.

Back in the 80s using a credit card was rare. Most people saved money to buy staff.

I was solidly middle class with parents that owned a typical house in Vancouver. They paid down the mortgage as quickly as possible. No vacation or eating out in retardants.

Back then the average family had a single car garage. The average family only owned a single car.

[Innsertnamehere]

When you look at average quality of life today it’s higher in basically every way except for real estate, and even then in more affordable markets housing is generally far better as well if you exclude the GTA and Vancouver.

[ssiguy]

Originally Posted by Innsertnamehere

When you look at average quality of life today it’s higher in basically every way except for real estate, and even then in more affordable markets housing is generally far better as well if you exclude the GTA and Vancouver.

The standard of living should be exponentially higher now than it once was INCLUDING housing. Back in the day there was usually only one bread earner and if the wife worked it was usually just PT and all this while raising 4 or 5 kids. Added to this is that we are vastly more highly educated than people were in the 60s & 70s so the standard of living should be much higher across the board.

The sad reality is that people born after 1990 will NEVER, EVER enjoy the standard of living that their grandparents did which is both sad and pathetic.

Sorry ScotiaBank..............but you're POORER than you thought.

[whatnext]

Originally Posted by Innsertnamehere

When you look at average quality of life today it’s higher in basically every way except for real estate, and even then in more affordable markets housing is generally far better as well if you exclude the GTA and Vancouver.

Really? Your parents could afford a house and two cars. Your kids will be lucky to shoehorn their kids into a 2 bed condo and rely on the Loser Cruiser for transportation.

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by ssiguy

The standard of living should be exponentially higher now than it once was INCLUDING housing. Back in the day there was usually only one bread earner and if the wife worked it was usually just PT and all this while raising 4 or 5 kids. Added to this is that we are vastly more highly educated than people were in the 60s & 70s so the standard of living should be much higher across the board.

The sad reality is that people born after 1990 will NEVER, EVER enjoy the standard of living that their grandparents did which is both sad and pathetic.

Sorry ScotiaBank..............but you're POORER than you thought.

I am not sure that era ever really existed. My grandfather who worked in a factory moonlighted as an unlicensed plumber to make ends meet. My grandmother also put in a lot of work growing/preserving food to supplement his income. When they got married they got $800 from relatives (equivalent of about 10k today) and it covered a dining room set and a bed.

On the other side of the family, my grandmother went back to work a few years after having kids.

Housing and energy were cheaper. Food was cheaper (although hard to compare very different tastes). Cars were cheaper (although also hard to compare).

[chowhou]

My parents were dodging bullets and race wars in East Vancouver in their youth. I'll take life today over life then.

Originally Posted by acottawa

Housing and energy were cheaper. Food was cheaper (although hard to compare very different tastes).

Don't be so sure about food being cheaper. Food is cheaper, more diverse, more available, and more consistent than ever. Is it not insane that we can eat mangos in Canada in February?

[GenWhy?]

Originally Posted by ssiguy

The reality is that our standard of living has plunged in the last 40 years. Young people today simply don't realize how much of a lower standard of living they have than their parents and grandparents. They think having to go to university for 4 or 5 years and having their spouse do the same so they can get a one bedroom walk-in-closet means they are living the Canadian dream.

It's truly pathetic how many young people's long-term financial goals rely on their parents dropping dead. That of course assumes they picked the right parents because if they didn't they they will be a debt slave for the rest of their lives. We were once a very high income nation and now we are a high income one. We will never even touch Greece's situation but in 40 years we could be near Italy's but with an astronomically higher cost of living due to our ridiculous housing costs.

We are a nation in decline and we must make a radical change in course in our economic policies and a monumental decline in our immigration levels is where we have to start.

Really depends on what you define as "decline" and where in the country this person grew up as well. I could imagine if one's parents owned a detached home in Vancouver or Toronto that this dream is not possible today for many.

[1overcosc]

Food has gotten both more and less expensive, in different ways, I think.

I suspect that the price for each specific food item has fallen on average (maybe a few things are pricier), but the amount households spend on food has risen, as the replacement of housewives with 2 income households combined with the decline in traditional food skills like canning, preserving, breadmaking, etc. means that people are purchasing a lot more pre-prepared food or ingredients and doing a lot less cooking from scratch. Basically people are forced to trade in time for extra cost as less time is available for home cooking. Instead of baking your own bread, people buy it. Instead of making their tomato sauce from bulk tomatoes bought every September, they buy canned tomatoes throughout the year.

I've gotten into scratch cooking more and more these last few years and it's quite noticeable how much more affordable it is; my grocery spending has stayed largely flat these last few years even as prices have risen considerably, so I've witnessed this phenomenon in reverse.

[thewave46]

Originally Posted by Innsertnamehere

When you look at average quality of life today it’s higher in basically every way except for real estate, and even then in more affordable markets housing is generally far better as well if you exclude the GTA and Vancouver.

A house/affordable place to live is actually kind of important though. In fact, it may be the one of the most important elements of living. Affordable shelter ranks up there with food/water/human connection bits of Maslow's hierarchy. If the basics are unachievable, it's cold comfort (probably literally) to those on the losing side.

So, while entertainment, vacations, electronics, and variety of food are probably better and cheaper than before (and that's great unto itself), I'll be sure to mention that to people on the margins. It'll be my line: "Just think, you can go to Cancun cheaply!" Let them eat cake, 2023 Canada style.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by ssiguy

The standard of living should be exponentially higher now than it once was INCLUDING housing. Back in the day there was usually only one bread earner and if the wife worked it was usually just PT and all this while raising 4 or 5 kids. Added to this is that we are vastly more highly educated than people were in the 60s & 70s so the standard of living should be much higher across the board.

The sad reality is that people born after 1990 will NEVER, EVER enjoy the standard of living that their grandparents did which is both sad and pathetic.

Sorry ScotiaBank..............but you're POORER than you thought.

Being able to raise a family with just one bread-earner wasn't the best thing for many women's aspirations and freedom for sure, but it also contributed to quality of life in non-material ways.

I am pretty sure that most parents back then weren't running around like crazy trying to get groceries and every single errand done between 7 pm and 9 pm weeknights or spending most of their weekend days doing that stuff.

Not to mention all of the housework. Which is a huge pain in the ass when both parents are working. Note that not all families can afford a maid today, and even so there is a ton of stuff that maids don't do in a house. (Arguably, most of the work, they don't do.)

As I already alluded to, this runs against the women's liberation movement, but in terms of overall family quality of life (especially for the kids) not sure today is an upgrade from that.

[ssiguy]

When I was a kid, a bank was a place to get money not food............. any questions?

[chowhou]

Originally Posted by ssiguy

When I was a kid, a bank was a place to get money not food............. any questions?

How old are you?

[MonkeyRonin]

Originally Posted by chowhou

How old are you?

From that article: "by 1986, there were 31, feeding 8,300 [in BC, annually]"

Meanwhile, in 2022: more than 163,000 food bank visits, per month [in BC]: https://www.cbc.ca/search?q=food%20b...ance&media=all

Over in Toronto, a full 10% of the city's population are now regular food bank users: https://toronto.citynews.ca/2023/04/...ost-of-living/


Food banks obviously aren't new, but their usage & necessity for an increasingly significant share of the population is a recent phenomenon; which doesn't square up with a supposedly rising quality of life.

[chowhou]

Originally Posted by MonkeyRonin

From that article: "by 1986, there were 31, feeding 8,300 [in BC, annually]"

Meanwhile, in 2022: more than 163,000 food bank visits, per month [in BC]: https://www.cbc.ca/search?q=food%20b...ance&media=all

Over in Toronto, a full 10% of the city's population are now regular food bank users: https://toronto.citynews.ca/2023/04/...ost-of-living/


Food banks obviously aren't new, but their usage & necessity for an increasingly significant share of the population is a recent phenomenon; which doesn't square up with a supposedly rising quality of life.

I'm guessing back then it was more common to get a hot meal at the UGM or your local church or your local Legion

[Innsertnamehere]

Real estate is indeed a huge factor which is having spillover effects into other aspects of life in Toronto and Vancouver. Even as food, consumer goods, cars, vacations, etc all drop in price relative to incomes, real estate costs have increased far quicker in those markets. This also has an outsized impact on the lowest income tiers.

If you do not live in Toronto or Vancouver however, quality of life is better in almost every metric. Lower poverty rates, higher car ownership rates, more annual vacations, more disposable income, more square footage per resident, etc. most of these are true in toronto and Vancouver too (yes, including lower poverty rates), but for real estate related issues.

With regards to food banks, I think the stigma around them has shifted a lot too - you have to careful with comparing in that way. In 1981 a lot more people probably just skipped meals as there was an odd stigma and shame about using a food bank. Or used alternate sources as others have mentioned.

To say quality of life is worse than the 1960’s is a joke. People back then lived basic lives in a small home with little disposable income. Living a similar lifestyle to the 1960’s today would still be very achievable on a single income (again considering real estate issues in the two big Anglo cities) - just go buy a $15,000 car, the smallest tv you can find with antennae service, drop all phone plans, eat lots of cheap, simple foods, take day trips to the beach for your vacation, and raise 5 kids in a 900sf house which is fitted with the most basic finishes. That was the median 1960’s lifestyle, and that is why it was possible on a single income.

Something like this with 4-5 kids in it and an extremely basic car and not much else was typically the expectation back then:

Check out this listing
https://realtor.ca/real-estate/25573...alsharelisting

The median family today most certainly had a far higher quality of life than that, typically with each kid having their own bedroom, multiple much nicer vehicles, annual vacations, huge disposable incomes, etc.

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by Innsertnamehere

The median family today most certainly had a far higher quality of life than that, typically with each kid having their own bedroom, multiple much nicer vehicles, annual vacations, huge disposable incomes, etc.

The median household income in Canada is 73k. There is no way a family on a median income has the kind of lifestyle you’re describing. You’re describing the lifestyle of a professional couple with a household income in the 200k range.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by acottawa

The median household income in Canada is 73k. There is no way a family on a median income has the kind of lifestyle you’re describing. You’re describing the lifestyle of a professional couple with a household income in the 200k range.

Professional middle class thinks they are the median.

More at 11.

To be fair, if your parents give you half a million in downpayment, and buy your cars that might be your lifestyle on a "median" income. I've heard from mortgage brokers in the GTA that this kind of support is not uncommon with the average parental contribution hovering around a quarter million. This is where talking about income without discussing family wealth and debt is kind of pointless. Very few people in our largest metros are playing with just their own money these days.

[Innsertnamehere]

Originally Posted by acottawa

The median household income in Canada is 73k. There is no way a family on a median income has the kind of lifestyle you’re describing. You’re describing the lifestyle of a professional couple with a household income in the 200k range.

median couple with children income is far higher than 73k though. That's median across all age groups including students, seniors, etc.

Median income for couples with children was $136,000 in 2020 - $136k in 2020 could definitely buy you a decent home in the suburbs, two cars, and an annual vacation (though the last one would have been on hold for that year, haha) outside of Toronto or Vancouver.

I mean drive around the suburbs of Calgary or Saskatoon or London or Kingston or Moncton and ask yourself if the kind of lifestyles you see people living were even possible for those outside of the 1% in 1970.. They weren't.

[Acajack]

My aunt and uncle raised three kids on a single income in a house that looked like this in Scarborough.

He worked in engineering though was not a certified engineer.

https://www.google.com/maps/@43.7522...7i16384!8i8192