I guess it depends on province but I heard you have high inflation over there. How is it affecting the average person over there?
You might wanna post in !Canada.
Surviving, wishing I didn’t buy a house Jan. 2022 though lol
The question is really best answered by asking did the person own real estate before the pandemic hit?
The financial chasm that ripped apart society along the lines of real estate ownership is very real
I’m fortunate that my career went well and I’m a DINK during this and it could be weathered, but it’s a bit rough. In Ontario, rent control was removed and it seemed to lead to the building of a bunch of “luxury” apartments and very little development under that tier which seemed to drive up average pricing even more. The kind of apartment I was paying $1500 for before the pandemic could be $2500 now. Things like meats and cheeses seem to be increasing in price weekly, anywhere from 30-50% more than it was a few months ago.
It didn’t hurt me hard, our household was already putting 50+% into savings given no kids, no car, and very little recreation outside of the apartment; however, I see lots more of my students working through school than I did previously, friends in the lower income range that lived a little outside their means have had to make some pretty big lifestyle cuts to afford rent. Everyone I know living in rent-controlled buildings (in Ontario, those built before 2018 when the regulations changed) are pretty afraid to move and have had contentious relationships with landlords looking to ride inflation to bigger profits.
It’s just a shame it’s happening simultaneously with (or in part because of) the Ontario government working to cut many social services and privatize health care.
Oh no, we certainly do, but the provincial government is taking steps to try and introduce/bolster a private healthcare market that threatens to reduce access to the public healthcare sector. Lots of cutbacks and legislation has been slowly depleting the publicly funded healthcare in the province, reducing faith in the system, and that’s being used as a means to push a private sector to fix the broken system. It certainly wasn’t perfect before, but it’s pretty transparent what the current provincial government is doing as they have a lot of industry interests.
Inflation hit record highs during the covid pandemic, but its been falling to normal levels again. Inflation numbers are still skewed a bit thanks to food and real estate prices remaining high.
Personally, I haven’t been affected much by inflation. I’d guess that’s mostly because I already bought a house and I eat cheap food. The average Canadian is fine, but young Canadians getting started in life are in a rough spot since they struggle to build up savings.
Here’s a graph by Statistics Canada
The young kids struggling to get started was a problem well before COVID and the inflation. It’s a problem that’s fallout from the elimination of the middle class, and stagnant salary growth compared to an ever rising PPP index. Canada started protecting their (small, super concentrated) elite and the elite’s related corporations, at the cost of the wellbeing of their citizens >1970s. We are seeing a well-established generational difference as a result, that’s now been magnified by the Millenial/Gen Z groups, as they’ve also has to contend with the fallout from huge macroeconomic events like the Great Recession, COVID and post-Covid inflation. Not to mention having to contend with the formation and growth of one of the greatest asset bubbles in modern economic history.
