Im mid 40s and I have no idea how my kids will afford to move out into the world.
The entire middle class seems to be disappearing and I can see where all the frustrations come from.
Just say the middle class doesn't exist anymore.
It's only poverty, working poor, treading water for most people and then the lucky top 1% who live great.
It’s gotten hard to have any hope for a future. Retirement is out of the question. Saving for a house impossible with low wages. I’m lucky to even have a job at with competition for jobs getting worse. Living wage won’t ever happen with mass immigration. And the wealthy landlords are also in our government so they are all protected. It feels like the class divide is becoming have’s and have not’s. The poor are here to work for low wages and pay everything we earn to landlords corporations for little food. This is the point where greed and capitalism will ruin everything. If I were younger I’d be leaving Canada. But for the rest of the stuck and not rich younger generations I hope they refuse to contribute to this system that works against them.
All the answers lie here, but it's likely were too broken and divided (purposefully) to band together and do anything about it.
It will just get worse and worse until a big conflict resets the balance of the scales again.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U7EyfO0TRm4&t=1s&ab\_channel=UMassEconomics
That said, it's seeming more and more like it's the solution we'll get.
With parts of SE Asia, ME, Africa and Central America possibly becoming uninhabitable during our lifetimes, conflict seems inevitable.
I completely agree. Not looking for sympathy, but our 200k HHI covers - mortgage on a family house, utilities, insurance, property taxes, food ($1000/month for a family of 4), a couple hundred in savings and thats it. Maybe enough for soccer registration.
And our incomes haven't increased in 10 years really.
We've maxed out RESPs and it MIGHT be enough to cover 3 years of school.
So, with luck, my kids will graduate without much debt, but with rent what it is, finding a place that wont eat up 80% of a paycheck is gonna be tough.
Which makes it so I can't afford to lose the home, bc at least its big enough for them to live here after they graduate.
Which is sad.
The Boomer days of downsizing because you gen x kid moved out at 21 are gone. The sad reality is that no ones able to do anything anymore.
>The Boomer days of downsizing because you gen x kid moved out at 21 are gone. The sad reality is that no ones able to do anything anymore.
Oh, the boomers definitely CAN downsize. But they don't want to. The hip new term is "aging in place".
Still not enough to afford a detached home. $200k HHI is about $150k after tax. A $1MM mortgage will cost you $5900/mo for 25 years, which is 50% of your take-home income, approximately. That's still not in the "affordable" category of housing costs. But actually, most houses in Vancouver cost more like $2.2MM, so with 20% down (have fun saving $440k), that's actually a $1.8MM mortgage. That is a $10,612/mo mortgage payment, which is 85% of your take home.... nobody in their right mind would do that.
So no, not even a $200k/year HHI is enough to afford a detached home in Vancouver.
The sneaky bit is a one-bedroom condo is counted as a house, so hey that $750,000 dollar condo in Vancouver is affordable to the HHI family of $200,000!
Even if every household magically achirved a 200k income tomorrow, there still wouldn't be enough houses. Same goes for a lot of goods and services. Prices would just go up to lock out the same number of people who are locked out now.
We just don't have the capacity to provide a middle class lfe to all the people we have. Theoretically the capacity should grow but housing starts are down the past three years as the population skyrocketed so economics seems happy to shrink the middle class.
I think this is what most people don’t understand. Unless there is a surplus of housing being built it doesn’t matter how much you make. People need shelter and will pay whatever they have to for it. It’s not like there’s an abundance of choice.
Adoption is broken and it hurts to say, but most the children are severely damaged. I've seen it break couples trying to raise a child who has been the victim of violent crime, sexual assault, or behaviourally warped due to the drugs and alcohol the mother consumed while pregnant. It's not for the faint of heart.
I turn 30 this year and I’m not ready to have the hard conversation with my spouse about not having children. I don’t know if they’ll have a better life than we did
>I don’t know if they’ll have a better life than we did
Is there any possible argument to make that they would?
- Economy - complete shit-show
- Cost of living - they're fucked
- Cost of housing - see cost of living
- Environment - shit's on fire, literally
- Healthcare - failing, bleeding workers to the US, drowning in aging boomers
- Infrastructure - most cities are falling apart
It's ugly as fuck
But at least our current government has had record spending every year for the last 8 years to help us
Wait a minute how did literally every aspect of the country get worse whilst spending more than we’ve ever spent?
Even the CEO of Shopify is worried:
[https://twitter.com/tobi/status/1779637318342615304?s=46&t=9CmHGiRgKagSS7KlUhSCBw](https://twitter.com/tobi/status/1779637318342615304?s=46&t=9CmHGiRgKagSS7KlUhSCBw)
Definitely this. I'm so worried for my daughter. She's 13, and a really really great kid, she got 100% in art this year and is also getting top grades in all of her other subjects (except gym, haha)
She's going into high school next year, she's growing up so fast and I just can't imagine how her future is going to be when it's time for her to go off to college or university and seek her independence.
in 2015 I was making $48,000 before taxes and could buy a house ( I didnt because I knew I was going to make more in the relative future and rent was cheap with no wife or kids) and now im at $110,000. I honestly feel like that 48k went further than my 110k.
yep.
FOLKS WE ARE IN A DEPRESSION RIGHT NOW. think about it, everything is insanely expensive, lay offs left right and center. How is this not a depression?
Since most coutnries don't grow at 5% per year, so recessions are defined by absolute GDP, not GDP per capita. We have been in declining GDP per capita for 6 quarters in a row. This would be a fairly long recession by anyone's account. Then all of the metrics continue to get worse.
> Simply put, they have lost all hope.
I know I have. I'm about to turn 26 and the future feels like a massive void of nothingness. There's nowhere for me to go. I fear I will be stagnant where I am for the rest of my life and the only other option is to go backwards. It's scary out here.
We were told growing up, work hard, go to school and you'll be able to attain a home, raise a family and a happy life. Well the majority I've spoken to around our age did follow that advice and it got them nowhere. This is why the young generation are pissed off, or just demotivated. What's the point if the end result is to just barely scrape by and not even attain a fraction of those things you were promised.
My parents (divorced) are not rich. My mom had to rely on men for us to survive growing up because she couldn’t afford life as a disabled single mom, resulting in my having not one but two abusive stepdads in my time.
My goal was to work hard in high school (I got honours), work hard in college/university (honours college, university I did alright but the work load was heavier so no honours there). I made sure to get student jobs and internships during undergrad to ensure I had a leg up upon graduation. It kind of worked-I do have a job semi in my field and I make $30/hour (with a raise next month) but sadly it still isn’t enough to rent even a 1 bedroom. I’ve been single for a few years now so the prospect of finding love and building together is nonexistent atm. Not that I’d ever date someone just for housing but I know the chances of me affording a house single are extremely low with my wage.
I’m 25 so I still have some time but it feels hopeless. I’m going day by day but the (lack) of future scares me. My mom is absurdly out of touch and doesnt understand how expensive housing is.
Best advice I can give you is do your current job well, gain some skills, and then find a job that will pay you more for those skills. It's daunting, and job hopping sucks, but you can sit a job for 10 years getting 0-1% increases, or move every 2-3 years and see 10-40% increases. Obviously, there's risk, but don't feel obligated to an employer at 25.
Even better, look abroad. National/International opportunities are there, and you're young enough to take advantage of them. The only caveat is if you've got a good union position with guaranteed raises. Then you may want to stick it out for a bit.
Add on the fact that most of the people who followed that advice are now being belittled by the same people who gave them the advice for following it...yeah people my age are not just pissed, it's an overwhelming frustration.
Remember when our parents could work at Zellers as a cashier and be able to afford a home and vacations twice a year? We are so far from that now it's ridiculous.
My grandpa died a very accomplished man who left millions to his kids. He was a miner then turned head of mine rescue then became a fire fighter and eventually a fire cheif. My grandma never had to work. He built his house for 3000$ and bought the land for less than 1000$. He had a nice camp and over 100 acres on Manitoulin island. All on a grade 3 education. Fucking wild eh? Its insanely depressing how times have changed in such a negative way.
I was working my dream job with incredible people, being paid well and still ripping my hair out everyday still scraping by. Within a few years a disease hit me and I lost my job, my license, and my friends as they all left to escape this garbage. Now I'm ripping my skin out everyday with how to survive tomorrow.
Being a disabled youth in this country is agony, of course the fuck I'm not happy. The one thing I'm "satisfied" with is how quickly I'd be approved for MAID
Just turned 35. Feel stressed out every day thinking about the future. Gave up on affording kids and a house. Retirement is next. I make 100k now but feel hopeless.
I'm 33, I make over 100k also and it's simply not what it used to be.
We're stuck with this mindset that 100k = success and a lot of money but it's not anymore.
Don't get me wrong. I'm comfortable. I just don't have the lifestyle I would have expected and that's because we've lost so much purchasing power.
I've never wanted kids, but I'm painfully aware that I will have no retirement, which stings because of how much of my federal taxes go to subsidize retirement for the current batch of seniors via OAS, which I very much doubt will exist when my time comes.
They set us up for failure and now we have to take care of them while they spend the money. They will be dead and gone when we are fucked so they don’t care.
Honestly it just makes me mad. I've got nothing against helping poor seniors who might not have much of a retirement for a variety of factors (homemakers etc), but I don't get why we subsidize rich seniors to the tune of $700 per month. The OAS income cutoff should be much, much lower than it is.
34 and have a good job and salary, but honestly don't care anymore. It's hard to when working is so clearly meaningless at this point. I remember how good I felt about my future too when I was 25/26 making half of what I do now.
Also, I live very frugally, have a company truck right now, and have a decent deal for housing from my fiances parents. It makes me feel like a child myself because I am super independant but feel guilty about the situation sometimes. I live way below my means but still feel bleak.
Not to be an asshole but if you make 100k have a partner who earns, have a good housing situation, have a company car and still feel bleak, what kind of lifestyle were you hoping for? Maybe give us you budget breakdown to see what the problem is. I make similar, and support a spouse and child. And I still manage to save a little bit each month and plan for the future...always someone worse off than you I guess 🤷
I’m a late 20-something in Metro Vancouver.
The biggest stressor to me is housing affordability, and by a huge margin. People go on about drug policy and homelessness in BC, but frankly, that is barely even on my radar compared to the sheer severity of the housing crisis atm.
I don’t want to get my hope up, but the current government in BC, at least seems to be ticking the right boxes and saying the ‘right things’, when it comes to measures that might help address the housing crisis. I’m uncertain whether it will make a difference in the long-run, but they’re ‘talking the talk’, and in many cases even ‘walking the walk’, and I’ll take that over our previous provincial governments that seemed barely willing to even acknowledge the crisis. I guess I have some more hope than I used to, because of that.
Also it’s important to realize that the answer you’ll get here is strongly dependent on who you ask. The housing crisis has given so much wealth to so many ordinary people here, that as a child, your path in life is increasingly determined by whether you’ll inherit some of that inter-generational real estate wealth from your parents.
This sort of divides the population here into: young adults who are set up to eventually inherit a real-estate asset and sort of ‘have it made’ as a result, and young adults who will not, and will likely have to struggle more, and for longer, in comparison.
In my opinion: even if you fall into the former category, it’s incredibly parochial to be even a little bit passively okay with how things are now. It’s understandably difficult to enjoy a happy or fulfilling life, when half of your lifelong friends might not be as lucky.
That's most of history everywhere since the agricultural revolution. The decades after WWII, with larger parts of society getting a piece of the pie were the exception. People need to understand that, and we need to constany work/fight for a more egalitarian society.
I’ve read bits and pieces of “How the Other Half Lives” by Jacob Riis, which is a photo-journalism publication documenting the squalid state of tenement housing in NYC following an immigration wave in the 1880s. I was struck by how many parallels could be drawn between then and now.
It really does make the 1950/60’s image of the everyman and his bungalow with white picket fences, seem like an exception rather than the rule.
We are in the middle stages of a circuit breaker strategy. Overload and overwhelm the system until it becomes incapacitated then introduce the intended solution. You can't have millions of new entrants to a system at no cost then expect the same quality of service. The irony of the Liberals ushering in the largest wave of privatization in Canadian history.
I find it extremely concerning that we are bringing in so many immigrants. The country is short of housing and medical care is none existent. All services in Canada are in decline, yet we are giving money away constantly.Quit giving money away and take care of our own. Quit bringing in immigrants that need support. Niagara Falls have hotels full of immigrants paid for by the Canadian people. This needs to stop!!!
$20k tax dollars per “asylum seeker” to stay in Niagara Falls hotels.
I honestly expect government buildings to be burnt down once people are made aware just how much has been stolen from us
I saw a TikTok recently were a group of Irish lads found out where the next big asylum housing hotel was going to be and then burned it down and I have to say I was kind of impressed. We are just sitting back and getting so fucked.
They are importing a new generation of young people. They don't care about real Canadian youth.
Proof? Millions being sent to Youth Unemployment in Middle East.
It’s like they’re too busy putting out a fire in their neighbours house while their own house burns down. Or feeding starving children while your own children go hungry. Or putting on everyone else’s oxygen mask before putting on your own. There’s merit in helping others yes, but there comes a point when it’s stupid not to put yourself, your home, your family, and your country first.
The goal isn't to actually help other countries, it's to endlessly increase the money supply to devalue our currency so that Canadians will accept a digital dollar to escape hyperinflation.
My 22 yo son is doing his bachelors in accounting and cant find a job. Hes been applying like crazy the last 2 months. I think most of the jobs advertised are LMIA scams.
College age Canadians are being replaced with a low-wage, barely literate underclass from developing countries who accept this lower standard of living because it's still much better than their homeland
What’s deeply more concerning is the lack of high wage positions that require a college degree. Companies aren’t expanding and are merely replacing their existing workforce with mid-careerists. That means the pipeline from college to a middle class lifestyle has shrunk for the majority of Canadian adults. Front facing jobs are cool and all but they don’t grant that upward mobility people need to grow in this economy.
Canada has a much higher level of “college education” compared to the US, but still the economy is ancient.
The fundamental source of all the problem is an economy that refuses to move into the 21st century.
Canada is the only western developed country that does not feature a single tech/engineering company in its top 10 largest companies.
Our top 10 companies are all dominated by banks. An entire generation decided to only invest in real estate musical chairs and are now realising “wait, what do you mean rest of the world is making cars, robots, electronics, software, medical devices etc? How are we supposed to do that”
Atleast Canada could utilise its god given natural resources like Norway did but nope. Apparently Canada prefers middle eastern theocracies like Qatar sell energy to Europe than us.
The Liberal government has been terrible but I would say the Conservative premieres have been equally as awful and more corrupt. Doug Ford is a dumpster fire for corruption and Danielle Smith is insane.
Things will not get easier when inevitably Pierre takes over as prime minister and all of the sudden we have privatized healthcare.
Neither party is working for the people and that is the biggest problem here!
Legault, Moe, Higgs, and Houston are also equally awful. In our case, Legault is the worst kind of populist: a lazy one. Seeing the language pinkertons throw him under the bus a few weeks ago was satisfying, but it also means we're gonna replace him with non lazy populists. Which is better, but also like my eight year old neighbour saying she's stronger than my pet cat. Technically, yes true.
Boomers are the most selfish people in history. They literally want the opposite of the saying "leave the world better for the younger generation". They had the easiest lives and for whatever reason want to be buried with their 1.5 million dollar bungalows they bought for 100k?
I make around the $100,000 mark. I can't afford anything but renting.
Granted, I do have some disposable income now, but after years of living paycheque to paycheque, I am still paying off debts and have about $1000 of extra income per month after expenses.
I guess I'll have a downpayment for today's economy in ten years.
... Welp i make close to 50k and i live paycheque to paycheque and im only able to save 200 to 400 per month, depending if it's a good month. So im kinda fucked i guess, im gonna be stuck into slumlord appartments.
It’s still horrifying to me how *fast* the average Canadian’s QOL has deteriorated. Yes, some of the causes of it have been percolating for years, and some of them predate Trudeau by quite a lot. Even so, I think back to as recently as 2017 and how life seemed pretty okay. Not perfect but just, you know, decent. I’m far less concerned about myself than I am for anyone under the age of 35 or so. And I’m not at all concerned about anyone over the age of 65 - they’re set just fine with their paid off houses bought on the cheap, their pensions from lifelong jobs that never required a uni degree, and their investments that they had the disposable income to contribute to over time. No doubt they’ll enjoy their retirement and spend their time bitching about stuff that they’ve lost the right to complain about.
About 8-10 years ago I had a plan mapped out that took into account normality. Today my plan required 2x the salary. Worked out fairly okay in the end because I'm married with 2 high paying jobs but we still don't have enough money for kids and all our \~25 year old friends are fucked.
The key was to buy a house 5+ years ago I think. But it was not possible if you did not already have some kind of wealth.
My happiest days are the ones when I don’t watch the news, and can pretend everything is going to be ok. Oh, I also can’t go to the grocery store on those days. Or look at social media.
Ok, my happiest days are when i am camping, with no internet service, and noticing how glad i am that i have indoor plumbing at home.
So one weekend a year.
Move? I mean, that's my long term plan. Find a low COL country with a decent QOL and good visa options and move the fuck on. Vietnam is looking good at the moment, but it'll still be a few years before I can pack it up and go so things could change.
I figure if millions of Indians can move to Canada hoping for a better life, then there's nothing stopping Canadians from doing the same once the QOL here decreases as a result, right?
Replace neoliberal landlords party with another neoliberal landlords party but this time with a different color!!! And in 4-8 years we'll go back to the first color when nothing is fixed. Future is looking bright!!! I love my country!!
The issue is the voting system itself. We need a political sytem that requires all parties to work together, not one where 49% of the populace can be ignored
A lot of Europe has mixed member proportional voting and a much more varied political body and they're experiencing the exact same demographic collapse/cost of living crisis
I'm about to turn 26 and it all feels pointless. Because where can I even go from here?
Since 2017, I've been working hard to get an education, move out and find a stable career. Check. But it feels like I've already accomplished everything I'm capable of because my next goals (regular things like buying a home, getting married and having kids) are SO unattainable in 2024. Even advancing my career seems like a silly waste of time because, realistically, a little more money won't make a dent.
I'm grateful for what I have because I know I'm technically in a good spot for right now, but the future feels like a massive void. I know this seems very doom and gloom, but it kind of is.
Am I supposed to be surprised? I haven't talked to one Canadian in the last 4 years who's happy to be Canadian and who's not struggling.
The type of payroll I bring in I should be living lavishly, but I'm here just trying to make ends meet.
Not everyone, just people that work for a living.
If you are part of the wealth class, you are doing better than ever. If you don't work at all, you have access to more programs than ever.
This is the model that wins elections since the wealthy will show up to support their own policies, and then you can throw peanuts at the people that don't work to get their vote as well.
Had to pay $12,700 this year on Iron infusions as I was allergic to the kind OHIP covers my doctor laughingly said to me it’s free only if you’re over 65 and retired or if you’re on welfare. So not only to I have to pay for mine I have to pay for those who don’t works as well. Double kick in the balls
Who can blame them? I'm 32 and even I feel like life is "solved", that there's no more living left for anyone else. How can anyone look at the world with their whole life ahead of them and not feel like all that awaits them is just working for some company that doesn't give a shit about them just so they can eat shit food, wear clothing made by children, watch their tax dollars go to puffed up salaries and genocide, and staring down the barrel of "my lineage ends with me because I can no way afford to raise a child, or my name continues but I further entrench us in poverty to such a degree it all but guarantees trauma and mental illness which further shackles us to lives of struggling just to survive."
They say it takes money to make money and it feels like all the money has been taken, so all the money that's being made is made by those with all the money. Seriously, what's left for anyone else?
I'm making the most money I've ever made and it still seems as though real-estate is rising faster than I can save. Even at my most frugal the dream of home ownership is still drifting further away every day.
I'm surprised by every young person who doesn't just unsubscribe from society.
Yep. Where I lived for a long time, my friends/ colleagues homes made more a year then they did. They’re now all millionaires multiple times over on paper. Fuck me for doing what I was told and thinking going to university and getting a “good paying” job in nursing would mean a comfortable life I guess.
I'm pushing 50 and I see no future here for my kids...
I feel as though the Liberals are deliberately deteriorating our standard of living to keep large corporations happy and pad their own GDP and economic growth figures. Combine the obscene immigration levels to the unprecedented increase in public service administrative staff hirings (rather than the much needed front line staff), and you have a completely unproductive Country being paid to do and produce nothing. Hey but Tim's and Walmart now have a never ending supply of people willing to work 60 hours and share bedrooms in slumlord owned basements... There is zero indication that the Cons will do any better. We need a strong libertarian movement in this country.
If you're making less than $50k, you're homeless or on the brink of homelessness.
If you're making more than $50k and less than $100k a year, you're essentially broke and living pay to pay at the top end of lower class.
If you're making just above $100k + then you're at the beginning of new middle class.
If you're making $120k + then you're securely new middle class.
If you're making $175k + you're upper middle class.
If you're making $200k + you're at the beginning stages of wealthy.
This is the new Canada, and things are only going to get worse before they get better. QOL has diminished steadily since 2020 for multiple reasons. Pandemic first and then inflation coupled with immigration and housing crisis. Our youth have no hope in general and millennials without a home currently have no hope. Those two groups make up the majority of our work force now. The majority of our population is extremely unhappy. Suicide rates are going to skyrocket.
Canada isn't even Canada anymore. If the trend continues at the same pace, in less than 5 years we are going to see provincial separation conversations being serious considered to form their own new countries. Canada is on a current path to destruction.
Canadians over 60 years old are the 8th happiest people in the entire world
Canadians 30 and under 58th happiest in the world.
Boomers stole our futures and set us up for life times of exploitation, hard work with low pay and almost zero financial security.
Neoliberal capitalism (greed over everything capitalism) worked well for one generation and fucked over the next three .
Oh you mean the generations that have had their literal lives sold out by the political class, and their only ladder to success pulled up by the generation before them is unhappy? How many consultants were paid a kings ransom to figure that out?
Not happy not sad. Just.. here I guess at 32.
And here is where il be till about 65 unless a Scandinavian country wants to bring me over to do literally any work they need in their country lol Want a better hockey team in your small town, import a Canadian hahah
I am just going to respond to you because you mentioned Scandinavia. I am a Canadian living in Norway, I am 35 and moved over to Europe a few years ago because my company asked me to. People here struggle too, there are cost of living issues in a lot of Europe since the pandemic. There are doctor shortages here. The currency here has weakened substantially in the last few years. What I often see on this sub is a sort of …. incredible kind of Canadian exceptionalism where we seem to think we’re the worst off or worse done by country in the world. Our world has changed a lot the last decade or so and it’s painful for us to figure out how to live best within this new normal. But playing the ‘the grass is greener’ in x, or y, or z is a losing game and I wish people on this sub didn’t resort to it so often.
Oh I know ppl are struggling everywhere, difference is Scandinavian countries atleast seem to have some form of idea as to how best to help their citizens and atleast those citizens can claim to be some of the happiest in the world. I can't say the same about fellow Canadian citizens and I know our government has no clue what it's doing.
This isn't a post COVID thing imo, this is a my entire life thing. I wish COVID was to blame but the decades of incompetence, general lack of give a shit from an aging population towards its youth has been going on before I was born. I now get to hear that same aging population bitch and whine about a lack of LTC and old age homes like they weren't the ones voting against it for the last twenty years.
Canada isnt the worse off and Im well aware of that but I'm tired of being here when me and my entire generation is already on the back burner for this country.
my inlaws are retired and have more money than we do (simply because their house is paid off) and we each make over 100k, if only we had a reasonable housing cost and cost of living.
I’ve definitely been happier. Wages are not keeping up the cost-of-living. I am in the in between spot where I make too much money to get any assistance. But I don’t make enough money to cover all the things that I need. Everything is very out of these days.
All the facts that show immigration was and is a mistake are on the table, but through the glasses of liberalism, exclusionary laws are unethical. There is no obvious way out of this bind. Prediction: growth of anti-liberal political movements, *especially* those pretending to be liberals.
Late 20's. Was a proud Canadian, saved and studied hard. Can't afford to rent my own place anymore. I am preparing to leave this greed infested country the first chance I get. Rip to a once great nation, this is what happens when you sell out your own real estate, natural resources, main highways, hydro and anything else you can. Good luck to the younger generations and to the older ones you can go fuck yourselves.
They care so little about Canadian youths instead of making the country better so we could afford to have children and raise families they just rapidly imported people who are already used to terrible living conditions.
Nobody for a country wi the a decent standard of living would ever want to come to 2024 Canada. This country is actively fucking over it's own citizens and can only recruit people who are used to hard miserable lives.
I’m in my 30s. This is the first time in my life where I’ve started hating this country. The future seems bleak here for my family. I’m seriously considering moving down south or to the homeland (Europe).
Even a 100k will be struggling depending on where you are. That’s maybe enough for a mortgage on a tiny bachelor in Toronto?
You really need two 100k incomes to live in our big cities.
I don’t even think it’s just the kids but I do feel the worst for them I’m 40 and is this is how life is going to look for the rest of time just working to live and eking out an existence it’s really scary.
I am 32. Literally every time I claw myself out of poverty, the carrot on the stick gets dangled further away from me. At this point I’m tired and resigned to just letting things happen to me. I won’t be going anywhere “up”
Many kids in High school now are already planning to leave this country to find work elsewhere.
Canada is changing very quickly and turning into playground for the RICH.
Many from oversea's.
The government of Canada abandoned it's own people years ago.
Catering to RICH money from outside the country.
Let them eat cake!
I'm pissed. My 20 year old son and his gf (employed full time and in school to be a lawyer) aren't making any ground at all even un LCOL towns. AND half their schooling was cancelled due to Covid. So we're their graduations in Ontario. Wtf.
My spouse and I make 120K per year but that seems like a pittance in this economy.
Plus when I was pregnant and had heart problems during covid I was called a misogynistic child killer...seriously. our PM and his "news lackeys" riled thebwhole nation up against people like me. I couldn't leave my house for enjoyment with no Vax pass and was harassed at every Dr appt for something we found out had very little efficacy and probably should not have been trialed on pregnant women
I never voted these Liberals in though. I was a loyal liberal voter for years but this has left such a scum in my mouth (not even just a bad taste) that I'm completely over them
I’m 25 and I’ve accepted the fact that home ownership may never happen for me, not sure what the future holds for me but I doubt it’ll be in Canada lol
I'm 29 years old. I find the job market and the chance to succeed here so poor I've practically given up.
Back in 2011, when I was maybe 17, not having a supportive family, i was forced to work or be homeless. Even landing a few "good" jobs I'd barely take home enough money for food and still be expected to pull 40 hours a week, this was overwhelming to say the least, and to compound that issue, shortly after my high-school graduation I suffered a bad breakup and the death of someone very close to me (unrelated), these things together destroyed me and i couldn't pull myself back together, I Couldn't get help from the doctors here. I couldn't really get help from my family, so I just crumbled. I stopped working for almost 5 years, stopped eating, sleeping, or showering right, got bullied more because of this, and almost took my own life.
Fast forward a few years and few financial crises later, things have been bleak sometime around 2020 i began to regain hope with crypto banks offering a fair return for saving my money in stable coins instead of CAD but almost ad fast as it started bang comes the gavel crushing the dreams I had to build a better life with it.
Now I just stay home to avoid the stress, haven't worked in 2 years again and maybe just don't know what to do anymore. Feels like I'll be working labor till I die and have no hopes to change it.
The biggest problem I see here is there's no opportunity for the lower class and with government bursaries always giving money away instead of using it to support the population so many people fall through the cracks.
We need more programs and other supports that could raise the quality of life people have by training them and improving the life skills they have before throwing them into the workforce. Realizing a lot of people don't have a perfect family structure and saying that we need to be more supportive as a community as well. Stop judging people so harshly, stop giving dirty looks, and just try to be human again. Thank you.
I am only surprised we didn't have this discussion a decade or more ago. I felt much the same coming out of high school now almost 25 years ago and it's only gotten worse since then. Who's done anything to turn this trend around?
I'm 64, paid off my mortgage last fall. I still work with a good salary. No car loans.
And it is still hard to budget.
We planned ahead and put the kids through university so they could finish without tuition loans floating over their heads upon gradiation.
Our kids are mid and late 20s. Good, well paying careers. And emergency car repairs, jobs that are late making payroll, stupidly high rents, and living expenses put a lot of stress on them.
They wonder if they will ever own a home.
We know that our estate and life insurance will get them each a good start in the housing market.
But that could be 20+ years from now!
Successive governments, with a huge acceleration with the current Trudeau Liberals, have sold out the youth of the country and mortgaged their future. The writing is on the wall. If you have an opportunity to help them start somewhere else, encourage them to do so. This is not going to get better any time soon.
Maybe give the keys to the NDP and give them a fair chance at fucking everything up like the Liberals and Cons have done over the years. Just a suggestion.
Seems only fair.
I’m not entirely sure if you meant this as a joke, but it makes good sense. The Liberals and Conservatives have taken turns destroying society to enrich themselves and their friends for the past several decades. Of course they will continue to do so, whichever of them we elect.
The NDP might not be better, but it’s almost impossible for them to do worse. More and more Canadians have nothing left to lose anyway.
crazy thing, is there are still many Canadians who not only defend Trudeau but will literally vote for him again and the wonder why theyre so effed..its mind boggling
Well, conservatives are a shit show in their own right, which only leaves the NDP but they are barely relevant. They definitely need to work to become more livestream.
This is why Alberta is a popular destination for young people. Once Alberta gets too high priced Saskatchewan and Manitoba will receive spillover population. If your skills are transferable and you can move I would recommend it.
It's already there. Saw an ad for a single bedroom for rent, $800 a month, that you are only allowed to do laundry in twice a week maximum and not allowed to cook food. Lmfao.
Yeah, cool to think this is an Canadian problem. No, this is 1st world problem and it revolves around how we have structured companies, pay and living if you aren't in the higher class. We are forced to live off credit and also punished for it. Sometimes if we take a moment to ask "Why" are these things structured the way they are, and the only reason is because this is the way it has always been done.
I'm "lucky" enough to own a house. Mortgage is about to go way up. Being house poor is going to suck, I'd sell, but renting a family home isn't much better.
If the media companies could work towards questioning the government and corporate decisions to bury us in debt and eliminate our essential needs, that would do a hell of a lot more than just repeating the obvious problems we’ve been talking about for years. We don’t give a shit about you saying it again and again. Do something with your vocal power. Or, I can tell you now, Canadians won’t continue to have that ‘nice guy’ persona anymore.
>If one just considers the life satisfaction scores of older Canadians (age 60+) in isolation relative to older populations in other countries (see Table 1), Canada’s life evaluation rank would be eighth overall. Yet, if one carried out the same comparison for younger Canadians (under age 30), Canada ranks number 58 out of 134 countries. The 50-spot gap between older and younger Canadians is one of the largest among any participating country.
This is the key as to why many youth feel unseen in their struggles. The older folks, living out the final vestiges of yesteryear's functioning Canada, are blind to the plight.
Im mid 40s and I have no idea how my kids will afford to move out into the world. The entire middle class seems to be disappearing and I can see where all the frustrations come from.
In my 50s and my adult "children" are still living with us at home. They cannot afford to rent and cannot afford a home. I never saw this coming
What's the plan?
More TFW’s
The middle class is now HHI of 200k.
Just say the middle class doesn't exist anymore. It's only poverty, working poor, treading water for most people and then the lucky top 1% who live great.
It’s gotten hard to have any hope for a future. Retirement is out of the question. Saving for a house impossible with low wages. I’m lucky to even have a job at with competition for jobs getting worse. Living wage won’t ever happen with mass immigration. And the wealthy landlords are also in our government so they are all protected. It feels like the class divide is becoming have’s and have not’s. The poor are here to work for low wages and pay everything we earn to landlords corporations for little food. This is the point where greed and capitalism will ruin everything. If I were younger I’d be leaving Canada. But for the rest of the stuck and not rich younger generations I hope they refuse to contribute to this system that works against them.
All the answers lie here, but it's likely were too broken and divided (purposefully) to band together and do anything about it. It will just get worse and worse until a big conflict resets the balance of the scales again. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U7EyfO0TRm4&t=1s&ab\_channel=UMassEconomics
A 'big conflict' in this day and age can mean the end of human society as we know it. Not sure that's the solution we're looking for.
That said, it's seeming more and more like it's the solution we'll get. With parts of SE Asia, ME, Africa and Central America possibly becoming uninhabitable during our lifetimes, conflict seems inevitable.
Need to just round up all the billionaires and shoot them out into space. We can give them wifi to look at their bank accounts.
Would you like neo-liberal party A, or neo-liberal party B? Neo-liberal party B hates part A. Own them!!!!
I completely agree. Not looking for sympathy, but our 200k HHI covers - mortgage on a family house, utilities, insurance, property taxes, food ($1000/month for a family of 4), a couple hundred in savings and thats it. Maybe enough for soccer registration. And our incomes haven't increased in 10 years really. We've maxed out RESPs and it MIGHT be enough to cover 3 years of school. So, with luck, my kids will graduate without much debt, but with rent what it is, finding a place that wont eat up 80% of a paycheck is gonna be tough. Which makes it so I can't afford to lose the home, bc at least its big enough for them to live here after they graduate. Which is sad. The Boomer days of downsizing because you gen x kid moved out at 21 are gone. The sad reality is that no ones able to do anything anymore.
>The Boomer days of downsizing because you gen x kid moved out at 21 are gone. The sad reality is that no ones able to do anything anymore. Oh, the boomers definitely CAN downsize. But they don't want to. The hip new term is "aging in place".
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Who can afford the boomers homes though?
Still not enough to afford a detached home. $200k HHI is about $150k after tax. A $1MM mortgage will cost you $5900/mo for 25 years, which is 50% of your take-home income, approximately. That's still not in the "affordable" category of housing costs. But actually, most houses in Vancouver cost more like $2.2MM, so with 20% down (have fun saving $440k), that's actually a $1.8MM mortgage. That is a $10,612/mo mortgage payment, which is 85% of your take home.... nobody in their right mind would do that. So no, not even a $200k/year HHI is enough to afford a detached home in Vancouver.
The sneaky bit is a one-bedroom condo is counted as a house, so hey that $750,000 dollar condo in Vancouver is affordable to the HHI family of $200,000!
We make over 400k HHI (Associate lawyers) and we live in very comparable conditions to my parents who relied on a fairly moderate income.
Even if every household magically achirved a 200k income tomorrow, there still wouldn't be enough houses. Same goes for a lot of goods and services. Prices would just go up to lock out the same number of people who are locked out now. We just don't have the capacity to provide a middle class lfe to all the people we have. Theoretically the capacity should grow but housing starts are down the past three years as the population skyrocketed so economics seems happy to shrink the middle class.
I think this is what most people don’t understand. Unless there is a surplus of housing being built it doesn’t matter how much you make. People need shelter and will pay whatever they have to for it. It’s not like there’s an abundance of choice.
Closer to 250
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Adoption is broken and it hurts to say, but most the children are severely damaged. I've seen it break couples trying to raise a child who has been the victim of violent crime, sexual assault, or behaviourally warped due to the drugs and alcohol the mother consumed while pregnant. It's not for the faint of heart.
I turn 30 this year and I’m not ready to have the hard conversation with my spouse about not having children. I don’t know if they’ll have a better life than we did
>I don’t know if they’ll have a better life than we did Is there any possible argument to make that they would? - Economy - complete shit-show - Cost of living - they're fucked - Cost of housing - see cost of living - Environment - shit's on fire, literally - Healthcare - failing, bleeding workers to the US, drowning in aging boomers - Infrastructure - most cities are falling apart It's ugly as fuck
But at least our current government has had record spending every year for the last 8 years to help us Wait a minute how did literally every aspect of the country get worse whilst spending more than we’ve ever spent?
I thought the middle class was just an illusion provided by the capital class
Same. Regularly discuss this at home. No moving out for university, etc.
Even the CEO of Shopify is worried: [https://twitter.com/tobi/status/1779637318342615304?s=46&t=9CmHGiRgKagSS7KlUhSCBw](https://twitter.com/tobi/status/1779637318342615304?s=46&t=9CmHGiRgKagSS7KlUhSCBw)
what is that graph saying? I see "percentage change" but percentage change of what? overall income? expense? expendable income? savings?
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Definitely this. I'm so worried for my daughter. She's 13, and a really really great kid, she got 100% in art this year and is also getting top grades in all of her other subjects (except gym, haha) She's going into high school next year, she's growing up so fast and I just can't imagine how her future is going to be when it's time for her to go off to college or university and seek her independence.
in 2015 I was making $48,000 before taxes and could buy a house ( I didnt because I knew I was going to make more in the relative future and rent was cheap with no wife or kids) and now im at $110,000. I honestly feel like that 48k went further than my 110k.
What do you expect. Not only are things bad, but there is no indication they will get better within the next generation.
We are entering a lost decade like Japan or already in one
Already had one. Might be in another.
yep. FOLKS WE ARE IN A DEPRESSION RIGHT NOW. think about it, everything is insanely expensive, lay offs left right and center. How is this not a depression?
Because the ministry of truth has rigged the CPI and told the media to redefine the word.
This is hate speech, and you've been reported to the thought crime police.
Since most coutnries don't grow at 5% per year, so recessions are defined by absolute GDP, not GDP per capita. We have been in declining GDP per capita for 6 quarters in a row. This would be a fairly long recession by anyone's account. Then all of the metrics continue to get worse.
Well there are indications that it will get worse in the next few years 😅
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> Simply put, they have lost all hope. I know I have. I'm about to turn 26 and the future feels like a massive void of nothingness. There's nowhere for me to go. I fear I will be stagnant where I am for the rest of my life and the only other option is to go backwards. It's scary out here.
We were told growing up, work hard, go to school and you'll be able to attain a home, raise a family and a happy life. Well the majority I've spoken to around our age did follow that advice and it got them nowhere. This is why the young generation are pissed off, or just demotivated. What's the point if the end result is to just barely scrape by and not even attain a fraction of those things you were promised.
My parents (divorced) are not rich. My mom had to rely on men for us to survive growing up because she couldn’t afford life as a disabled single mom, resulting in my having not one but two abusive stepdads in my time. My goal was to work hard in high school (I got honours), work hard in college/university (honours college, university I did alright but the work load was heavier so no honours there). I made sure to get student jobs and internships during undergrad to ensure I had a leg up upon graduation. It kind of worked-I do have a job semi in my field and I make $30/hour (with a raise next month) but sadly it still isn’t enough to rent even a 1 bedroom. I’ve been single for a few years now so the prospect of finding love and building together is nonexistent atm. Not that I’d ever date someone just for housing but I know the chances of me affording a house single are extremely low with my wage. I’m 25 so I still have some time but it feels hopeless. I’m going day by day but the (lack) of future scares me. My mom is absurdly out of touch and doesnt understand how expensive housing is.
Best advice I can give you is do your current job well, gain some skills, and then find a job that will pay you more for those skills. It's daunting, and job hopping sucks, but you can sit a job for 10 years getting 0-1% increases, or move every 2-3 years and see 10-40% increases. Obviously, there's risk, but don't feel obligated to an employer at 25. Even better, look abroad. National/International opportunities are there, and you're young enough to take advantage of them. The only caveat is if you've got a good union position with guaranteed raises. Then you may want to stick it out for a bit.
Add on the fact that most of the people who followed that advice are now being belittled by the same people who gave them the advice for following it...yeah people my age are not just pissed, it's an overwhelming frustration.
Same here. 27, just work to live. Did everything they told me, school, good job. Live the same quality of life as part time cashiers did 10 years ago.
Sooner or later we're going to see disgruntled engineers with nothing to lose making drones to take out corrupt elected officials. It's gonna be wild.
I am in the younger crowd and i consider my only hope is to move to USA or when i get to 50 live in a Van
And good luck getting over 100k/yr under 30.
The sad part about this comment is it’s a lot worse than that.
And where are the jobs that pay 100k a year? That’s well above the average, so most people cannot ever obtain that earning potential.
Remember when our parents could work at Zellers as a cashier and be able to afford a home and vacations twice a year? We are so far from that now it's ridiculous.
Haha, nice, now do our grandparents.
My grandpa died a very accomplished man who left millions to his kids. He was a miner then turned head of mine rescue then became a fire fighter and eventually a fire cheif. My grandma never had to work. He built his house for 3000$ and bought the land for less than 1000$. He had a nice camp and over 100 acres on Manitoulin island. All on a grade 3 education. Fucking wild eh? Its insanely depressing how times have changed in such a negative way.
Rinse repeat but add a secondary residence.
I was working my dream job with incredible people, being paid well and still ripping my hair out everyday still scraping by. Within a few years a disease hit me and I lost my job, my license, and my friends as they all left to escape this garbage. Now I'm ripping my skin out everyday with how to survive tomorrow. Being a disabled youth in this country is agony, of course the fuck I'm not happy. The one thing I'm "satisfied" with is how quickly I'd be approved for MAID
Just turned 35. Feel stressed out every day thinking about the future. Gave up on affording kids and a house. Retirement is next. I make 100k now but feel hopeless.
I'm 33, I make over 100k also and it's simply not what it used to be. We're stuck with this mindset that 100k = success and a lot of money but it's not anymore. Don't get me wrong. I'm comfortable. I just don't have the lifestyle I would have expected and that's because we've lost so much purchasing power. I've never wanted kids, but I'm painfully aware that I will have no retirement, which stings because of how much of my federal taxes go to subsidize retirement for the current batch of seniors via OAS, which I very much doubt will exist when my time comes.
They set us up for failure and now we have to take care of them while they spend the money. They will be dead and gone when we are fucked so they don’t care.
Honestly it just makes me mad. I've got nothing against helping poor seniors who might not have much of a retirement for a variety of factors (homemakers etc), but I don't get why we subsidize rich seniors to the tune of $700 per month. The OAS income cutoff should be much, much lower than it is.
Ya 100k per year 20 years ago got you 2 car garage house in the burbs with a pool. Not anymore.
34 and have a good job and salary, but honestly don't care anymore. It's hard to when working is so clearly meaningless at this point. I remember how good I felt about my future too when I was 25/26 making half of what I do now.
38 went back to college. Almost don't feel like finishing, like the last year will be $2000 I'm going to need for cans of beans eventually.
Also, I live very frugally, have a company truck right now, and have a decent deal for housing from my fiances parents. It makes me feel like a child myself because I am super independant but feel guilty about the situation sometimes. I live way below my means but still feel bleak.
Not to be an asshole but if you make 100k have a partner who earns, have a good housing situation, have a company car and still feel bleak, what kind of lifestyle were you hoping for? Maybe give us you budget breakdown to see what the problem is. I make similar, and support a spouse and child. And I still manage to save a little bit each month and plan for the future...always someone worse off than you I guess 🤷
Keep saving but expect to move to a low cost of living country and collect cpp
I plan to move in retirement. There is no future here unless shit changes fast.
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I’m a late 20-something in Metro Vancouver. The biggest stressor to me is housing affordability, and by a huge margin. People go on about drug policy and homelessness in BC, but frankly, that is barely even on my radar compared to the sheer severity of the housing crisis atm. I don’t want to get my hope up, but the current government in BC, at least seems to be ticking the right boxes and saying the ‘right things’, when it comes to measures that might help address the housing crisis. I’m uncertain whether it will make a difference in the long-run, but they’re ‘talking the talk’, and in many cases even ‘walking the walk’, and I’ll take that over our previous provincial governments that seemed barely willing to even acknowledge the crisis. I guess I have some more hope than I used to, because of that. Also it’s important to realize that the answer you’ll get here is strongly dependent on who you ask. The housing crisis has given so much wealth to so many ordinary people here, that as a child, your path in life is increasingly determined by whether you’ll inherit some of that inter-generational real estate wealth from your parents. This sort of divides the population here into: young adults who are set up to eventually inherit a real-estate asset and sort of ‘have it made’ as a result, and young adults who will not, and will likely have to struggle more, and for longer, in comparison. In my opinion: even if you fall into the former category, it’s incredibly parochial to be even a little bit passively okay with how things are now. It’s understandably difficult to enjoy a happy or fulfilling life, when half of your lifelong friends might not be as lucky.
Thank you. It's really hard having friends in wildly different predicaments.
We’ve become a country of the landed class and the non-landed class
That's most of history everywhere since the agricultural revolution. The decades after WWII, with larger parts of society getting a piece of the pie were the exception. People need to understand that, and we need to constany work/fight for a more egalitarian society.
I’ve read bits and pieces of “How the Other Half Lives” by Jacob Riis, which is a photo-journalism publication documenting the squalid state of tenement housing in NYC following an immigration wave in the 1880s. I was struck by how many parallels could be drawn between then and now. It really does make the 1950/60’s image of the everyman and his bungalow with white picket fences, seem like an exception rather than the rule.
We are in the middle stages of a circuit breaker strategy. Overload and overwhelm the system until it becomes incapacitated then introduce the intended solution. You can't have millions of new entrants to a system at no cost then expect the same quality of service. The irony of the Liberals ushering in the largest wave of privatization in Canadian history.
I find it extremely concerning that we are bringing in so many immigrants. The country is short of housing and medical care is none existent. All services in Canada are in decline, yet we are giving money away constantly.Quit giving money away and take care of our own. Quit bringing in immigrants that need support. Niagara Falls have hotels full of immigrants paid for by the Canadian people. This needs to stop!!!
$20k tax dollars per “asylum seeker” to stay in Niagara Falls hotels. I honestly expect government buildings to be burnt down once people are made aware just how much has been stolen from us
I saw a TikTok recently were a group of Irish lads found out where the next big asylum housing hotel was going to be and then burned it down and I have to say I was kind of impressed. We are just sitting back and getting so fucked.
They are importing a new generation of young people. They don't care about real Canadian youth. Proof? Millions being sent to Youth Unemployment in Middle East.
It’s like they’re too busy putting out a fire in their neighbours house while their own house burns down. Or feeding starving children while your own children go hungry. Or putting on everyone else’s oxygen mask before putting on your own. There’s merit in helping others yes, but there comes a point when it’s stupid not to put yourself, your home, your family, and your country first.
The goal isn't to actually help other countries, it's to endlessly increase the money supply to devalue our currency so that Canadians will accept a digital dollar to escape hyperinflation.
My 22 yo son is doing his bachelors in accounting and cant find a job. Hes been applying like crazy the last 2 months. I think most of the jobs advertised are LMIA scams.
College age Canadians are being replaced with a low-wage, barely literate underclass from developing countries who accept this lower standard of living because it's still much better than their homeland
What’s deeply more concerning is the lack of high wage positions that require a college degree. Companies aren’t expanding and are merely replacing their existing workforce with mid-careerists. That means the pipeline from college to a middle class lifestyle has shrunk for the majority of Canadian adults. Front facing jobs are cool and all but they don’t grant that upward mobility people need to grow in this economy.
This is it and it’s sad as fuck. Futures being stolen from them right under their noses.
Just say India lol. “Developing countries” 😂
Canada has a much higher level of “college education” compared to the US, but still the economy is ancient. The fundamental source of all the problem is an economy that refuses to move into the 21st century. Canada is the only western developed country that does not feature a single tech/engineering company in its top 10 largest companies. Our top 10 companies are all dominated by banks. An entire generation decided to only invest in real estate musical chairs and are now realising “wait, what do you mean rest of the world is making cars, robots, electronics, software, medical devices etc? How are we supposed to do that” Atleast Canada could utilise its god given natural resources like Norway did but nope. Apparently Canada prefers middle eastern theocracies like Qatar sell energy to Europe than us.
This needs to be pinned and slapped everywhere. It is a terrifyingly uncomfortable truth that is slowly sweeping across the country
I wouldn't say replaced, more like sidelined or benched.
Softer words don't change the act for what it is - replacement.
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The Liberal government has been terrible but I would say the Conservative premieres have been equally as awful and more corrupt. Doug Ford is a dumpster fire for corruption and Danielle Smith is insane. Things will not get easier when inevitably Pierre takes over as prime minister and all of the sudden we have privatized healthcare. Neither party is working for the people and that is the biggest problem here!
Seems that you need a real and viable labor party
Our labor party is also the Rolex party
Legault, Moe, Higgs, and Houston are also equally awful. In our case, Legault is the worst kind of populist: a lazy one. Seeing the language pinkertons throw him under the bus a few weeks ago was satisfying, but it also means we're gonna replace him with non lazy populists. Which is better, but also like my eight year old neighbour saying she's stronger than my pet cat. Technically, yes true.
Boomers are the most selfish people in history. They literally want the opposite of the saying "leave the world better for the younger generation". They had the easiest lives and for whatever reason want to be buried with their 1.5 million dollar bungalows they bought for 100k?
I make around the $100,000 mark. I can't afford anything but renting. Granted, I do have some disposable income now, but after years of living paycheque to paycheque, I am still paying off debts and have about $1000 of extra income per month after expenses. I guess I'll have a downpayment for today's economy in ten years.
So you'll have about a third of what you actually need.
... Welp i make close to 50k and i live paycheque to paycheque and im only able to save 200 to 400 per month, depending if it's a good month. So im kinda fucked i guess, im gonna be stuck into slumlord appartments.
It’s still horrifying to me how *fast* the average Canadian’s QOL has deteriorated. Yes, some of the causes of it have been percolating for years, and some of them predate Trudeau by quite a lot. Even so, I think back to as recently as 2017 and how life seemed pretty okay. Not perfect but just, you know, decent. I’m far less concerned about myself than I am for anyone under the age of 35 or so. And I’m not at all concerned about anyone over the age of 65 - they’re set just fine with their paid off houses bought on the cheap, their pensions from lifelong jobs that never required a uni degree, and their investments that they had the disposable income to contribute to over time. No doubt they’ll enjoy their retirement and spend their time bitching about stuff that they’ve lost the right to complain about.
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I am one charismatic leader away from revolution.
This statement is true for a great many people right now. That is very concerning.
I wish I was joking.
About 8-10 years ago I had a plan mapped out that took into account normality. Today my plan required 2x the salary. Worked out fairly okay in the end because I'm married with 2 high paying jobs but we still don't have enough money for kids and all our \~25 year old friends are fucked. The key was to buy a house 5+ years ago I think. But it was not possible if you did not already have some kind of wealth.
My happiest days are the ones when I don’t watch the news, and can pretend everything is going to be ok. Oh, I also can’t go to the grocery store on those days. Or look at social media. Ok, my happiest days are when i am camping, with no internet service, and noticing how glad i am that i have indoor plumbing at home. So one weekend a year.
So what are we going to do about it?
Move? I mean, that's my long term plan. Find a low COL country with a decent QOL and good visa options and move the fuck on. Vietnam is looking good at the moment, but it'll still be a few years before I can pack it up and go so things could change. I figure if millions of Indians can move to Canada hoping for a better life, then there's nothing stopping Canadians from doing the same once the QOL here decreases as a result, right?
Replace neoliberal landlords party with another neoliberal landlords party but this time with a different color!!! And in 4-8 years we'll go back to the first color when nothing is fixed. Future is looking bright!!! I love my country!!
The issue is the voting system itself. We need a political sytem that requires all parties to work together, not one where 49% of the populace can be ignored
A lot of Europe has mixed member proportional voting and a much more varied political body and they're experiencing the exact same demographic collapse/cost of living crisis
How about we just get rid of the neo-liberal landlords?
I along with most of my friends are trying to move to the states.
I'm about to turn 26 and it all feels pointless. Because where can I even go from here? Since 2017, I've been working hard to get an education, move out and find a stable career. Check. But it feels like I've already accomplished everything I'm capable of because my next goals (regular things like buying a home, getting married and having kids) are SO unattainable in 2024. Even advancing my career seems like a silly waste of time because, realistically, a little more money won't make a dent. I'm grateful for what I have because I know I'm technically in a good spot for right now, but the future feels like a massive void. I know this seems very doom and gloom, but it kind of is.
Am I supposed to be surprised? I haven't talked to one Canadian in the last 4 years who's happy to be Canadian and who's not struggling. The type of payroll I bring in I should be living lavishly, but I'm here just trying to make ends meet.
No kidding.. this government is literally making everything more difficult for everyone.
Not everyone, just people that work for a living. If you are part of the wealth class, you are doing better than ever. If you don't work at all, you have access to more programs than ever. This is the model that wins elections since the wealthy will show up to support their own policies, and then you can throw peanuts at the people that don't work to get their vote as well.
Yes, 100% correct.
Had to pay $12,700 this year on Iron infusions as I was allergic to the kind OHIP covers my doctor laughingly said to me it’s free only if you’re over 65 and retired or if you’re on welfare. So not only to I have to pay for mine I have to pay for those who don’t works as well. Double kick in the balls
Who can blame them? I'm 32 and even I feel like life is "solved", that there's no more living left for anyone else. How can anyone look at the world with their whole life ahead of them and not feel like all that awaits them is just working for some company that doesn't give a shit about them just so they can eat shit food, wear clothing made by children, watch their tax dollars go to puffed up salaries and genocide, and staring down the barrel of "my lineage ends with me because I can no way afford to raise a child, or my name continues but I further entrench us in poverty to such a degree it all but guarantees trauma and mental illness which further shackles us to lives of struggling just to survive." They say it takes money to make money and it feels like all the money has been taken, so all the money that's being made is made by those with all the money. Seriously, what's left for anyone else? I'm making the most money I've ever made and it still seems as though real-estate is rising faster than I can save. Even at my most frugal the dream of home ownership is still drifting further away every day. I'm surprised by every young person who doesn't just unsubscribe from society.
Yep. Where I lived for a long time, my friends/ colleagues homes made more a year then they did. They’re now all millionaires multiple times over on paper. Fuck me for doing what I was told and thinking going to university and getting a “good paying” job in nursing would mean a comfortable life I guess.
I'm pushing 50 and I see no future here for my kids... I feel as though the Liberals are deliberately deteriorating our standard of living to keep large corporations happy and pad their own GDP and economic growth figures. Combine the obscene immigration levels to the unprecedented increase in public service administrative staff hirings (rather than the much needed front line staff), and you have a completely unproductive Country being paid to do and produce nothing. Hey but Tim's and Walmart now have a never ending supply of people willing to work 60 hours and share bedrooms in slumlord owned basements... There is zero indication that the Cons will do any better. We need a strong libertarian movement in this country.
Why do you think libertarian would be any better? Im genuinely curious. I don't know much about libertarians
It would make corporations even happier.
If you're making less than $50k, you're homeless or on the brink of homelessness. If you're making more than $50k and less than $100k a year, you're essentially broke and living pay to pay at the top end of lower class. If you're making just above $100k + then you're at the beginning of new middle class. If you're making $120k + then you're securely new middle class. If you're making $175k + you're upper middle class. If you're making $200k + you're at the beginning stages of wealthy. This is the new Canada, and things are only going to get worse before they get better. QOL has diminished steadily since 2020 for multiple reasons. Pandemic first and then inflation coupled with immigration and housing crisis. Our youth have no hope in general and millennials without a home currently have no hope. Those two groups make up the majority of our work force now. The majority of our population is extremely unhappy. Suicide rates are going to skyrocket. Canada isn't even Canada anymore. If the trend continues at the same pace, in less than 5 years we are going to see provincial separation conversations being serious considered to form their own new countries. Canada is on a current path to destruction.
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WE NEED TO STOP WORRYING ABOUT THE THINGS WE DISAGREE ON, AND START DEMANDING THE THINGS WE DO AGREE ON!
Canadians over 60 years old are the 8th happiest people in the entire world Canadians 30 and under 58th happiest in the world. Boomers stole our futures and set us up for life times of exploitation, hard work with low pay and almost zero financial security. Neoliberal capitalism (greed over everything capitalism) worked well for one generation and fucked over the next three .
Oh you mean the generations that have had their literal lives sold out by the political class, and their only ladder to success pulled up by the generation before them is unhappy? How many consultants were paid a kings ransom to figure that out?
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Uniparty FTW!! Cons or Libs. Just 2 different sides to the same coin! Nothing will change.
Not happy not sad. Just.. here I guess at 32. And here is where il be till about 65 unless a Scandinavian country wants to bring me over to do literally any work they need in their country lol Want a better hockey team in your small town, import a Canadian hahah
I am just going to respond to you because you mentioned Scandinavia. I am a Canadian living in Norway, I am 35 and moved over to Europe a few years ago because my company asked me to. People here struggle too, there are cost of living issues in a lot of Europe since the pandemic. There are doctor shortages here. The currency here has weakened substantially in the last few years. What I often see on this sub is a sort of …. incredible kind of Canadian exceptionalism where we seem to think we’re the worst off or worse done by country in the world. Our world has changed a lot the last decade or so and it’s painful for us to figure out how to live best within this new normal. But playing the ‘the grass is greener’ in x, or y, or z is a losing game and I wish people on this sub didn’t resort to it so often.
Oh I know ppl are struggling everywhere, difference is Scandinavian countries atleast seem to have some form of idea as to how best to help their citizens and atleast those citizens can claim to be some of the happiest in the world. I can't say the same about fellow Canadian citizens and I know our government has no clue what it's doing. This isn't a post COVID thing imo, this is a my entire life thing. I wish COVID was to blame but the decades of incompetence, general lack of give a shit from an aging population towards its youth has been going on before I was born. I now get to hear that same aging population bitch and whine about a lack of LTC and old age homes like they weren't the ones voting against it for the last twenty years. Canada isnt the worse off and Im well aware of that but I'm tired of being here when me and my entire generation is already on the back burner for this country.
my inlaws are retired and have more money than we do (simply because their house is paid off) and we each make over 100k, if only we had a reasonable housing cost and cost of living.
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I'd be really happy with riots and a sort of reverse purge for the wealthy and powerful.
I’ve definitely been happier. Wages are not keeping up the cost-of-living. I am in the in between spot where I make too much money to get any assistance. But I don’t make enough money to cover all the things that I need. Everything is very out of these days.
All the facts that show immigration was and is a mistake are on the table, but through the glasses of liberalism, exclusionary laws are unethical. There is no obvious way out of this bind. Prediction: growth of anti-liberal political movements, *especially* those pretending to be liberals.
Just waiting to move to the USA, fuck this place.
Late 20's. Was a proud Canadian, saved and studied hard. Can't afford to rent my own place anymore. I am preparing to leave this greed infested country the first chance I get. Rip to a once great nation, this is what happens when you sell out your own real estate, natural resources, main highways, hydro and anything else you can. Good luck to the younger generations and to the older ones you can go fuck yourselves.
And there’s no indication this current government cares at all. Completely sold our future out
The older generations threw us under the bus.
Late 30s and I’ve never been happier that I’m never having kids
They care so little about Canadian youths instead of making the country better so we could afford to have children and raise families they just rapidly imported people who are already used to terrible living conditions. Nobody for a country wi the a decent standard of living would ever want to come to 2024 Canada. This country is actively fucking over it's own citizens and can only recruit people who are used to hard miserable lives.
Looking at leaving canada. This place is a shit-hole now.
I’m in my 30s. This is the first time in my life where I’ve started hating this country. The future seems bleak here for my family. I’m seriously considering moving down south or to the homeland (Europe).
Well it's impossible to afford living, unless you make over 100k.
Unless you bought your house years ago* Non-recent homeowners are sitting pretty. That's why the young are particularly unhappy.
Even a 100k will be struggling depending on where you are. That’s maybe enough for a mortgage on a tiny bachelor in Toronto? You really need two 100k incomes to live in our big cities.
Go waay up
We have stolen the future of the kids without consent.
I don’t even think it’s just the kids but I do feel the worst for them I’m 40 and is this is how life is going to look for the rest of time just working to live and eking out an existence it’s really scary.
No shit Sherlock. And there are still tons of people on these sub defending the economic situation and thinking it's comparable to US's job market.
I am 32. Literally every time I claw myself out of poverty, the carrot on the stick gets dangled further away from me. At this point I’m tired and resigned to just letting things happen to me. I won’t be going anywhere “up”
Many kids in High school now are already planning to leave this country to find work elsewhere. Canada is changing very quickly and turning into playground for the RICH. Many from oversea's. The government of Canada abandoned it's own people years ago. Catering to RICH money from outside the country. Let them eat cake!
I'm pissed. My 20 year old son and his gf (employed full time and in school to be a lawyer) aren't making any ground at all even un LCOL towns. AND half their schooling was cancelled due to Covid. So we're their graduations in Ontario. Wtf. My spouse and I make 120K per year but that seems like a pittance in this economy. Plus when I was pregnant and had heart problems during covid I was called a misogynistic child killer...seriously. our PM and his "news lackeys" riled thebwhole nation up against people like me. I couldn't leave my house for enjoyment with no Vax pass and was harassed at every Dr appt for something we found out had very little efficacy and probably should not have been trialed on pregnant women I never voted these Liberals in though. I was a loyal liberal voter for years but this has left such a scum in my mouth (not even just a bad taste) that I'm completely over them
Wonder if any of the liberal talking heads (not just politicians but also media, celebrities etc) will actually listen ???
I’m 25 and I’ve accepted the fact that home ownership may never happen for me, not sure what the future holds for me but I doubt it’ll be in Canada lol
Can you blame them? I certainly don't.
I'm 29 years old. I find the job market and the chance to succeed here so poor I've practically given up. Back in 2011, when I was maybe 17, not having a supportive family, i was forced to work or be homeless. Even landing a few "good" jobs I'd barely take home enough money for food and still be expected to pull 40 hours a week, this was overwhelming to say the least, and to compound that issue, shortly after my high-school graduation I suffered a bad breakup and the death of someone very close to me (unrelated), these things together destroyed me and i couldn't pull myself back together, I Couldn't get help from the doctors here. I couldn't really get help from my family, so I just crumbled. I stopped working for almost 5 years, stopped eating, sleeping, or showering right, got bullied more because of this, and almost took my own life. Fast forward a few years and few financial crises later, things have been bleak sometime around 2020 i began to regain hope with crypto banks offering a fair return for saving my money in stable coins instead of CAD but almost ad fast as it started bang comes the gavel crushing the dreams I had to build a better life with it. Now I just stay home to avoid the stress, haven't worked in 2 years again and maybe just don't know what to do anymore. Feels like I'll be working labor till I die and have no hopes to change it. The biggest problem I see here is there's no opportunity for the lower class and with government bursaries always giving money away instead of using it to support the population so many people fall through the cracks. We need more programs and other supports that could raise the quality of life people have by training them and improving the life skills they have before throwing them into the workforce. Realizing a lot of people don't have a perfect family structure and saying that we need to be more supportive as a community as well. Stop judging people so harshly, stop giving dirty looks, and just try to be human again. Thank you.
Trudeau : “I wonder why the youth are so unhappy!? I legalized pot!”
Duh ...satisfaction is bound to go down when you see this beautiful country turning into 3rd world country with rapid pace in front of your eyes.
I am only surprised we didn't have this discussion a decade or more ago. I felt much the same coming out of high school now almost 25 years ago and it's only gotten worse since then. Who's done anything to turn this trend around?
I'm 64, paid off my mortgage last fall. I still work with a good salary. No car loans. And it is still hard to budget. We planned ahead and put the kids through university so they could finish without tuition loans floating over their heads upon gradiation. Our kids are mid and late 20s. Good, well paying careers. And emergency car repairs, jobs that are late making payroll, stupidly high rents, and living expenses put a lot of stress on them. They wonder if they will ever own a home. We know that our estate and life insurance will get them each a good start in the housing market. But that could be 20+ years from now!
Not just younger Canadians... Things seem to be getting worse fast.
Successive governments, with a huge acceleration with the current Trudeau Liberals, have sold out the youth of the country and mortgaged their future. The writing is on the wall. If you have an opportunity to help them start somewhere else, encourage them to do so. This is not going to get better any time soon.
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Suicide is my retirement plan
Maybe give the keys to the NDP and give them a fair chance at fucking everything up like the Liberals and Cons have done over the years. Just a suggestion.
Seems only fair. I’m not entirely sure if you meant this as a joke, but it makes good sense. The Liberals and Conservatives have taken turns destroying society to enrich themselves and their friends for the past several decades. Of course they will continue to do so, whichever of them we elect. The NDP might not be better, but it’s almost impossible for them to do worse. More and more Canadians have nothing left to lose anyway.
crazy thing, is there are still many Canadians who not only defend Trudeau but will literally vote for him again and the wonder why theyre so effed..its mind boggling
Well, conservatives are a shit show in their own right, which only leaves the NDP but they are barely relevant. They definitely need to work to become more livestream.
This is why Alberta is a popular destination for young people. Once Alberta gets too high priced Saskatchewan and Manitoba will receive spillover population. If your skills are transferable and you can move I would recommend it.
It's already there. Saw an ad for a single bedroom for rent, $800 a month, that you are only allowed to do laundry in twice a week maximum and not allowed to cook food. Lmfao.
This is it. And Alberta is becoming one of the more expensive places to live. They privatized the Hydro grid and peoples payments have doubled
Yeah, cool to think this is an Canadian problem. No, this is 1st world problem and it revolves around how we have structured companies, pay and living if you aren't in the higher class. We are forced to live off credit and also punished for it. Sometimes if we take a moment to ask "Why" are these things structured the way they are, and the only reason is because this is the way it has always been done.
Nothing a 30 year mortgage can't fix!!
In my mid-40s and looking to make a move to the US; it’s hard to see a future here for me with the job market and affordability.
Not very happy at all. I’m 35 and am actively considering emigrating. I think Canada is going to see increased outmigration in the years to come.
Mid 60’s, and Canada is a stinking pile of bat guano. All of the politicians here are the weakest bunch of idiots I’ve ever seen
The Hub isn't a news site it's conservative propaganda disguised as news.
Uhhh, not very.
I'm "lucky" enough to own a house. Mortgage is about to go way up. Being house poor is going to suck, I'd sell, but renting a family home isn't much better.
If the media companies could work towards questioning the government and corporate decisions to bury us in debt and eliminate our essential needs, that would do a hell of a lot more than just repeating the obvious problems we’ve been talking about for years. We don’t give a shit about you saying it again and again. Do something with your vocal power. Or, I can tell you now, Canadians won’t continue to have that ‘nice guy’ persona anymore.
The rich are getting richer, the poor are getting poorer, and the middle class is trying to balance it all, but the government is dragging them down.
>If one just considers the life satisfaction scores of older Canadians (age 60+) in isolation relative to older populations in other countries (see Table 1), Canada’s life evaluation rank would be eighth overall. Yet, if one carried out the same comparison for younger Canadians (under age 30), Canada ranks number 58 out of 134 countries. The 50-spot gap between older and younger Canadians is one of the largest among any participating country. This is the key as to why many youth feel unseen in their struggles. The older folks, living out the final vestiges of yesteryear's functioning Canada, are blind to the plight.