Well.MNP are licensed insolvency consultants so regardless of the sample size the entire survey smacks of bias.
There are way better indicators of insolvency than this opinion poll. We'd expect a related tick up in actual bankruptcies, or their precursors like auto loan and mortgage defaults.
Even so, it confirms my first hand experience. Canada looks fairly affluent looking from the outside in but most people live paycheck-to-paycheck and in rural areas there is poverty at levels that you would not expect in what is nominally a first world country.
This might very well be enough. For 35 million people 2% error is 2400 people. So I think we can say it is 46-50% of the population does not have $200.
However if the samples were already biased into certain groups or not even Canadian, then it gets thrown off.
This is surprising to me. Can this be related to the low salaries compared to equivalent jobs in the US? Is the culture in Canada about taking on debt?
From my limited experience, Canada is somewhat a middle point culturally between US and EU. This aspect (debt) seems to be far closer to the US, at least when compared to northern EU where average debt per family is virtually zero.
Anecdotally, as a Canadian, I've long wondered how so many people seem to be able to afford home ownership, multiple vehicles, often a skidoo or ATV or two, a camp or trailer, a boat, annual vacations overseas... Statistically speaking I earn significantly more than the average, yet looking around it seems like most people are living way beyond my means.
So is the culture about debt? I don't know, but I wouldn't be surprised if that's the case.
My partner and I, when we see people with all these expensive things, have stopped looking at them with envy. Instead, we just think: that's a whole lot of debt right there.
I mean, who in their right mind spends $80k on a truck? Yet we see them EVERYWHERE, at least in our neck of the woods.
The Canadian household asset base is overwhelmingly dominated by their housing market. Their households are among the most indebted on earth and in considerably worse shape than the post great recession US households (who went the opposite direction and pushed their debt burdens downward by a lot and haven't reinflated that).
Canadians are far too over-leveraged on their housing. That seems great while housing values are soaring, as in the past (Australia being a recent extreme version of this, now seeing a market crash). When that turns, you get crushed.
The Average of average debt per household as a percentage of yearly income in northern EU countries is 100+% [0]. I myself am from NL and in the red for several times my yearly income. Granted, this is mostly due to high mortgages and thus the debt is offset by a valuable, but non-liquid, asset.
Discounting mortgage debt, my experience is that the average household doesn't really get into that much debt; credit card debt is fairly uncommon (but maybe also a taboo subject), whereas it is, as far as I know, pervasive in the US.
Anecdotally, I only got a credit card 3 months ago, after I _had_ to ask a friend to book a flight for me because the checkout would _only_ accept credit card, and subsequently the return flight was booked for the wrong date. I haven't used the credit card yet.
Are there any surveys or statistics to back this up besides Ipsos' survey? It's frankly hard to believe half the country is on the brink of insolvency.
I linked http://greaterfool.ca higher up, but I think it's the best source for Canadian financial info. Garth Turner does a really great service cutting through the bull with a blog article every day of the week!.
Search his site on google for "canada debt" for plenty of articles with links to real data / surveys.
[+] [-] winslett|6 years ago|reply
> Ipsos, which conducts the quarterly poll for MNP, surveyed 2,070 Canadians online from March 13-24.
I don’t trust this data as far as I can throw it.
Corrected headline “48% of 2,070 responses to online surveys stated that the respondee does not have $200.”
[+] [-] christocracy|6 years ago|reply
Like this from 3 months ago: https://www.greaterfool.ca/2019/02/02/tapped-out/
[+] [-] fhbdukfrh|6 years ago|reply
There are way better indicators of insolvency than this opinion poll. We'd expect a related tick up in actual bankruptcies, or their precursors like auto loan and mortgage defaults.
[+] [-] jacquesm|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nickelcitymario|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kevin_b_er|6 years ago|reply
However if the samples were already biased into certain groups or not even Canadian, then it gets thrown off.
[+] [-] urlwolf|6 years ago|reply
From my limited experience, Canada is somewhat a middle point culturally between US and EU. This aspect (debt) seems to be far closer to the US, at least when compared to northern EU where average debt per family is virtually zero.
[+] [-] nickelcitymario|6 years ago|reply
So is the culture about debt? I don't know, but I wouldn't be surprised if that's the case.
My partner and I, when we see people with all these expensive things, have stopped looking at them with envy. Instead, we just think: that's a whole lot of debt right there.
I mean, who in their right mind spends $80k on a truck? Yet we see them EVERYWHERE, at least in our neck of the woods.
[+] [-] adventured|6 years ago|reply
Two charts to this point.
Housing vs GDP: https://i.imgur.com/NlYEcIT.png
Canadians are far too over-leveraged on their housing. That seems great while housing values are soaring, as in the past (Australia being a recent extreme version of this, now seeing a market crash). When that turns, you get crushed.
Household debt to disposable income: https://i.imgur.com/1W9LBqP.png
You can see the Canadian households continued accumulating debt rapidly after the great recession.
Household debt to GDP: https://i.imgur.com/pWKqaY7.png
Canadian households took their debt to GDP ratio from ~60% to 100%+ over roughly 20 years.
The US household disposable income vs debt service payment figure is at about 9.8%, which is around a 40 to 50 year low (it peaked at 13.2% in 2007).
The Canadian figure is now up to around 14.9%. They're being strangled by debt interest costs.
Over the last few years, there have been an endless parade of headlines about the extreme debt load of Canadian households:
"Canada’s household debt levels higher than any other country, report says"
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/11/24/canadas-household-debt-level...
[+] [-] Phemist|6 years ago|reply
Discounting mortgage debt, my experience is that the average household doesn't really get into that much debt; credit card debt is fairly uncommon (but maybe also a taboo subject), whereas it is, as far as I know, pervasive in the US.
Anecdotally, I only got a credit card 3 months ago, after I _had_ to ask a friend to book a flight for me because the checkout would _only_ accept credit card, and subsequently the return flight was booked for the wrong date. I haven't used the credit card yet.
[0] https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/tgm/table.do?tab=table&init=1&...
[+] [-] abrowne|6 years ago|reply
Sadly, I wouldn't have been surprised had the headline applied to Americans rather than Canadians.
Edit: A quick search find similar stories like "6 in 10 Americans don't have $500 in savings" https://money.cnn.com/2017/01/12/pf/americans-lack-of-saving...
[+] [-] scj|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mschuster91|6 years ago|reply
Germany has 1/3 of households with no money reserves/in debt, 45 super rich people own as much as the poorer half of population.
[+] [-] unknown|6 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] hvass|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] christocracy|6 years ago|reply
Search his site on google for "canada debt" for plenty of articles with links to real data / surveys.
[+] [-] wesCsrlson|6 years ago|reply
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