Statistics Canada Reports II

[Innsertnamehere]

Originally Posted by lio45

When measured against the essentials (food on the table, roof over one’s head) they are certainly falling.

As you illustrate though, it’s still possible to try to claim that average Canadians live more luxurious lives right now than before, you just have to pick the right metric (attainability of iPhone computing power, for example).

compared to shelter it's falling, but against pretty much everything else, it's increasing.

People who have stable shelter (i.e. owners) are in a pretty good position, notwithstanding the current high interest rates designed to destroy disposable incomes to rein in inflation. That's not unique to Canada though, and is temporary.

Where people are f***ed is in the rental department who aren't shielded from increasing housing prices.

A regular reminder that news articles don't equal data as well. News articles love to dramatize - if you went off of their reporting, you would figure grocery costs had doubled or tripled in the last 3 years. The reality is that they are up 20%. Large for sure, but not nearly as dramatic as they make it out to be.

Canadian Median wages have also been on a tear lately as well, so it's not as bad as it looks.

The problem is not everyone gets to partake in rapidly rising wages as the increases are often uneven. Those often hit hardest are those in low income brackets - so you see dramatic impacts on food bank use, etc. as low income households incomes aren't increasing in step with food costs. It is a big reason why high inflation environments are so terrible for economies.

Layered on top of this is also the aforementioned interest rates.. which are purposefully destroying incomes to cut back on inflation.

The era of unlimited free money during covid is great for low incomes for a short while when everyone gets free printed money in the mail.. but we gotta pay for that now.

The good news is it'll pass as interest rates return back to the ground.

[hipster duck]

^Those are terrible demographic trends for Saint John. Saint John is affordable, not in a bad location, and it's not small. It shouldn't be in the same group as Miramichi and Edmunston in terms of its failure to attract working-age people or families with children. If the only age group that's growing is seniors, and not even the working age population is growing to serve them, eventually most of the jobs will revolve around serving seniors, who have fixed incomes and don't do a lot of discretionary spending. This is a death sentence for a city.

[Nite]

Originally Posted by Hecate

This is ridiculous. Food inflation has skyrocketed since 2021, as have housing costs. What isn’t clicking or you? Every major news source in this country has countless articles regarding our falling standard of living.

Housing and food are still not half of the average Candian month expense however and overall inflation is lower than wage increases.

[Nite]

Originally Posted by Hecate

This has to be trolling.

What have i said that is factually incorrect?

are wages not growing fast than inflation?

[Hecate]

Originally Posted by Nite

What have i said that is factually incorrect?

are wages not growing fast than inflation?

For higher earners, lower incomes not so much, but will this lead to another increase in inflation? Most likely. lol

[Drybrain]

Originally Posted by hipster duck

^Those are terrible demographic trends for Saint John. Saint John is affordable, not in a bad location, and it's not small. It shouldn't be in the same group as Miramichi and Edmunston in terms of its failure to attract working-age people or families with children. If the only age group that's growing is seniors, and not even the working age population is growing to serve them, eventually most of the jobs will revolve around serving seniors, who have fixed incomes and don't do a lot of discretionary spending. This is a death sentence for a city.

At least the decline in the youth population slowed dramatically.

I'm not sure what it is about SJ, though. Even as the region overall has boomed, SJ can't really get on the upswing, despite its many on-paper attributes, and the fact that until recently it was the province's largest city.

The differing fortunes of the cities overall is interesting. You might expect that as the region's largest city, Halifax would have done the best on these metrics, but the big plunge in the youth population, even as the smaller NB cities kept expanding theirs, says otherwise. On the other hand, if you look at the Statcan data tables this is sourced from, the nadir in Halifax came in 2014, at 59,561 people aged 0-14. The city’s 0-14 growth since then edges out Moncton’s and Fredericton’s, for a huge spike in a pretty short period of time. Not really sure to what to attribute either trend.

[lio45]

It’s similar to pointing out that the average Gazan is currently better off / living more comfortably than “in the past”.

There’s currently slightly more food, slightly more fuel, slightly more electricity, slightly less civilians killed per day, slightly less buildings destroyed per day, than in the past, with “in the past” defined as a couple weeks ago (cherry-picked low point for Gazan living standards).

It’s factually true, and undeniable, that Gazan living standards are higher today than in the past, and the trend is towards better living standards. (The trend of the past few weeks.)

[WarrenC12]

Originally Posted by Hecate

For higher earners, lower incomes not so much, but will this lead to another increase in inflation? Most likely. lol

You're just pulling shit out of your ass. Provide some data for your statements.

When PP is elected suddenly everything will be fine according to you, I can see it now.

[q12]

HALIFAX



https://halifaxpartnership.com/resea...-index/people/

[Innsertnamehere]

Originally Posted by Nite

What have i said that is factually incorrect?

are wages not growing fast than inflation?

To further Nites point on this - CPI is up 15.4% since February 2020 (i.e. before COVID). Wages in that time are up 17.1% - a real increase, inflation adjusted, of 1.7%.

The problem is that volatile environments like one with high inflation create lots of extra disparity as rapid increases happen unevenly. Which is why lots of people feel burned. Throw even more extreme swings in mortgage rates and rent on top of that burning lots of people, even the ones who have enjoyed rapid wage increases.. and you get the result of lots of unhappy people.

People who bought a house in January 2021 on a variable rate mortgage and are on a fixed income without major wage increases (i.e. work for the provincial government with mandated 1% wage increases) - they will be feeling really, really burned right now.

But if you are in an industry with rapid wage increases like, say, tech, and own your home outright? Life's pretty sweet right now.

The average works out to slightly better as a whole, according to data.. but it's happing in a very unequal and extreme way as a result of inflation throwing the whole normal operation of the economy on it's head.

[q12]

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by q12

Now THOSE are interesting stats.

[hipster duck]

Originally Posted by Drybrain

The differing fortunes of the cities overall is interesting. You might expect that as the region's largest city, Halifax would have done the best on these metrics, but the big plunge in the youth population, even as the smaller NB cities kept expanding theirs, says otherwise. On the other hand, if you look at the Statcan data tables this is sourced from, the nadir in Halifax came in 2014, at 59,561 people aged 0-14. The city’s 0-14 growth since then edges out Moncton’s and Fredericton’s, for a huge spike in a pretty short period of time. Not really sure to what to attribute either trend.

I hope that Halifax trend holds. At least on the surface, the age demographic trends of Halifax resemble those of a global city that's ten times bigger, and the age demographic trends in Saint John resemble those of a provincial town that's ten times smaller. They're both bad for cities of their respective sizes for different reasons.

The provincial town trend is what you'd expect in places of 15,000, not 150,000, that are peripheral geographically, economically, etc. Only the population of seniors is rising; all other groups are falling not just as a proportion of the total but in absolute numbers. The old will increasingly look after the old and the ability for businesses to hire workers to serve needs other than for the local senior community will get worse and worse. This is a difficult downward spiral to pull out of and a city the size of Saint John anywhere in Canada - let alone the Maritimes, where it's considered to be 'big' - shouldn't be in this position.

The global city trend is one where the share of families with children declines, but is made up for by a growth in childless workers. You see this in places like New York, London or Toronto where, unless you're rich or you're an immigrant with a lower bar for living standards, raising kids is kind of a bad proposition. But if you're a young adult who's childless, it's a place to get a good job and establish yourself, even if you have to live in an expensive apartment with roommates, and then you have a decent dating pool. I'm not sure if this is what's happening in Halifax, but the graphs q12 posted that shows the growth in the 15-44 age segment and how the vast majority of children who move to Halifax come from overseas seems to align with this.

I know Halifax is the "New York of the Maritimes", but it's not New York in the sense that it isn't a city with high paying jobs in a diversity of sectors and millions of people. It should be behaving more like Moncton or Edmonton demographically.

[MolsonExport]

Indeed. I am surprised that the natural rate of increase in Montreal is higher than Toronto or for that matter, any other city except Ottawa (same), and Calgary. The latter is a much younger city than Montreal.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by hipster duck

I know Halifax is the "New York of the Maritimes", but it's not New York in the sense that it isn't a city with high paying jobs in a diversity of sectors and millions of people. It should be behaving more like Moncton or Edmonton demographically.

It definitely has more limited job options but remote work might be changing things there somewhat. In some ways I would say Halifax feels more like a mini major city than a lower tier city within Canada, although it is hard to categorize. The local media are reporting growth in the past year was 5.5%, so data is often outdated these days. The SSP arguments showing 2011 census data are sort of like posting 1970's census data in the 2000's.

I don't hear it as much these days but people from other regions used to talk about it as a retirement village a lot. It never had those demographics though. These days the urban core increasingly resembles a larger city including aspects of debatable value like shopping areas feeling more like outdoor malls with chains instead of mom and pop stores.

I remember seeing comments from people about how residents in Halifax don't have the accents people expect. This was because a lot of the inhabitants and service workers weren't from the area. Back in the 2000's this maybe meant that the tourism operator was a student from Ontario and areas like the North End were full of older locals. Now the North End is largely gentrified and I'd guess the service workers are increasingly immigrants.

[Drybrain]

Originally Posted by hipster duck

The global city trend is one where the share of families with children declines, but is made up for by a growth in childless workers. You see this in places like New York, London or Toronto where, unless you're rich or you're an immigrant with a lower bar for living standards, raising kids is kind of a bad proposition. But if you're a young adult who's childless, it's a place to get a good job and establish yourself, even if you have to live in an expensive apartment with roommates, and then you have a decent dating pool. I'm not sure if this is what's happening in Halifax, but the graphs q12 posted that shows the growth in the 15-44 age segment and how the vast majority of children who move to Halifax come from overseas seems to align with this.

I don’t think this is exactly what’s happening, though—over the past ten years, the per-capita growth in the under-14 population in Halifax has been pretty dramatic, and greatly exceeded the CMA average across Canada. It is true that most of these people are immigrants rather than interprovincial migrants--in 2021/22, Halifax got only 264 people 0-14 from interprovincial migration. Immigration in the same age group was nearly 1,800.

But those immigrants are still the next generation of the city's youth. And what's sort of shocking is those interprovincial numbers are not actually bad. On a population-adjusted basis, Halifax came in, by my eyeballing of the stats, eighth out of all CMAs for drawing out-of-province youth. Moncton, Calgary, Saint John (bucking the trend above), Ottawa, Lethbridge, Kelowna, and Victoria did better. All other CMAs did worse or, in most cases, lost youth to interprovincial migration.

One area where Halifax fared worse is intraprovincial migration. The trend isn't as significant as in Toronto and Vancouver and some other places, but the city lost more kids to rural other parts of the province than it gained, presumably in part due to cost of living concerns.

[Nashe]

Originally Posted by Drybrain

One area where Halifax fared worse is intraprovincial migration. The trend isn't as significant as in Toronto and Vancouver and some other places, but the city lost more kids to rural other parts of the province than it gained, presumably in part due to cost of living concerns.

I noticed that and kinda wonder if as you say 1) cost of living 2) it's pretty much drained all of the outports already 3) of the ones it doesn't drain, they are greatly gentrified and there aren't a lot of kids growing up there (Lunenburg, Mahone Bay, etc.). Moncton seems to still be draining the NB North, at least for now... though more and more of the numbers are coming from outside.

Halifax has always been one of the places I'd LOVE to move to (downtown, of course) due to it's sitting in a nice intersection of metro/cozy and I saw myself retiring there but lately that is looking far out of reach. I'm likely "stuck" here in Moncton for the forseeable future as I transition to a fixed income pension.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by Drybrain

One area where Halifax fared worse is intraprovincial migration. The trend isn't as significant as in Toronto and Vancouver and some other places, but the city lost more kids to rural other parts of the province than it gained, presumably in part due to cost of living concerns.

This is potentially not a good statistic to capture urban vs. rural migration. Consider a commuter who moves to a subdivision just beyond the CMA boundary. Part of Hants got added in 2021, meaning that for years a lot of that county was already suburban, not rural. It'll be even messier now with more remote work and people driving in to town 2 days a week.

Places like Cape Breton or Yarmouth likely lose residents on balance to the city and have older demographics. The first ring of towns around Halifax (Kings, Lunenburg, Hants, and Colchester) is an economic region sort of like the Golden Horseshoe or Lower Mainland.

For years there was a distinct blue collar migration from rural NS to Alberta that skipped Halifax. My impression is that it has slowed now.

[csbvan]

Originally Posted by Drybrain

I don’t think this is exactly what’s happening, though—over the past ten years, the per-capita growth in the under-14 population in Halifax has been pretty dramatic, and greatly exceeded the CMA average across Canada. It is true that most of these people are immigrants rather than interprovincial migrants--in 2021/22, Halifax got only 264 people 0-14 from interprovincial migration. Immigration in the same age group was nearly 1,800.

But those immigrants are still the next generation of the city's youth. And what's sort of shocking is those interprovincial numbers are not actually bad. On a population-adjusted basis, Halifax came in, by my eyeballing of the stats, eighth out of all CMAs for drawing out-of-province youth. Moncton, Calgary, Saint John (bucking the trend above), Ottawa, Lethbridge, Kelowna, and Victoria did better. All other CMAs did worse or, in most cases, lost youth to interprovincial migration.

One area where Halifax fared worse is intraprovincial migration. The trend isn't as significant as in Toronto and Vancouver and some other places, but the city lost more kids to rural other parts of the province than it gained, presumably in part due to cost of living concerns.

Kelowna and Victoria. Huh. Starting to shift the narrative about who moves to those places.

[theman23]

Originally Posted by WarrenC12

You're just pulling shit out of your ass. Provide some data for your statements.

When PP is elected suddenly everything will be fine according to you, I can see it now.

Things will probably be much worse when PP is elected. He'll be inheriting a mess that is unlikely to be fixed in 4 years.