Canada

The standard of living is falling because the massive middle class is being looted by the .01%. Trillions of dollars have been funneled up to the ultra rich during the pandemic and afterward, and nothing is trickling down.

And governments around the world are enabling and assisting it, including in Canada at the federal and provincial (and municipal) levels.

While in no way intending to minimize the economic hardship inflation has had on Canadian’s lives, to be clear, this is ‘standard of living’ defined as real GDP per capita.

That is it measures the arithmetic mean or average of what the economy produces adjusted for general inflation. It says nothing about how income or wealth is distributed or other key factors that determine wellbeing at an individual, household or societal level.

This is not generally viewed as the best measure of quality of life or societal wellbeing. Critics from across the political spectrum globally have been critical of the focus on GDP per capita for decades. It says something that TD as a bank is still focused on it.

The OECD Finance Ministers adopted a Wellbeing Framework to measure and compare across countries. Canada has its own version that StatsCan is reporting on.

Some kids where I live have pediatricians. My 1 yr old son sees a public health nurse for vaccines, goes to emergency when something is wrong and i sneak him in for checkups when I have an appointment with my nurse practitioner, because pediatricians (and doctors in general) are in short supply.

$10/day daycare sounds great, unless your kid isn't already enrolled. Waitlists are mostly closed. I've called a dozen daycares at least and I'm on the waiting list for two, basically hoping for a string of cancellations.

This gap in the market has resulted in a boom of unregulated daycares in random people's houses! What could possibly go wrong with that?

Cost of electricity is going up. Not because of oil prices, but because ratepayers need to pay (and pay and pay) for a government/crown corp boondoggle. But don't worry, the people who pushed it all through can afford the rate hike, and solar panels and wind turbines and batteries to boot.

My standard of living has been declining for at least a decade.

ITT: people confusing Standard of Living with Quality of Life.

Remote Native communities in Canada listening in to this debate ....

No shit Sherlock. Food cost keep rising when grocery stores make record profits. Shrinkflation is the new trend to blind the unaware consumer. House and lodging cost is insane and the government is watching everything burn.

The hole is getting deeper ...

Considering how GDP is measured, this is more a sign of the real estate slowdown and the collapse of the O&G/fisheries industries than anything else.

What's more worrying is the lack of growth in Ontario/Quebec, which should be the economic engine of Canada.

Grocery and housing costs are getting out of control.

Imagine failing to provide of the most basic of commodities to your population so that rich people and boomers can trade theirs like NFTs... while real estate agents and other assortment of critters are able to extract large fees on per trade basis because fuck you peasants, that's why!

But I'm sure its young people fault they can't save money, afford rent/mortgage and move out of their parents house. If things don't turn around soon I think a lot of young people will end up leaving this country in search of a life that isn't just scraping by.