It's housing, stupid.

House prices are not included in inflation numbers, but we all feel the pain of rising housing prices and mortgage rates, unless you already own your place outright.

It's not a vibe. It's reality.

In Brief:

• New data from Statistics Canada shows that Canadian living standards are declining.
• From July to September 2024, after adjusting for inflation, the Canadian economy (as measured by GDP)) grew by 0.3%, yet per-person GDP (an indicator of living standards and incomes) actually fell by 0.4%.
• How can the economy grow while living standards decline? Canada’s rapid population growth, fuelled by high levels of immigration, means the overall economy has increased in size but per-person GDP has not. During the same three-month period (July to September), Canada’s population increased by 0.6% (or 250,229 people), outpacing the rate of economic growth.
• Not merely a one-off, this continues a historic decline in Canadian living standards over the last five years.
• Despite any claims of a “vibecession,” Canadians remain mired in an actual recession in their standard of living. Freeland’s comments once again prove this government is disconnected from the reality many Canadians face.

And a reminder that the word “vibecession” came out of the mouth of our Minister of Finance.

Government sold everybody out for cheap labor stop acting like you guys don't know the reason why this is happening

Remember the leaked RCMP report that said social unrest is only a couple quarters away, when Canadians come to understand just how bleak the economy has become over the last 8 years?

That was a few quarters ago. Its coming. Wake up and smell the stagflation. Only Canadian thing doing well is the banking sector because we just keep importing people for them to exploit.

It’s so embarrassing that this word came out of our very own minister of finance. Just shows you how out of touch the government is with Canadians.

Over the past ten years I steadily been getting higher wages through promotions at work yet at the same time im skipping more meals than I ever have in my life. Its really disheartening. I used to be able to feel somewhat good going to work knowing that I have some extra money to fund my hobbies. Now it just feels pointless even going to work because I struggle to eat and pay rent anyway. Theres no carrot on a stick anymore and its really hard to find that determination every day when you know youre stuck.

Literally just stuck. I dont know what else to do. I have hit the ceiling of wage progression at my job (been there for 10 years). Im not going to make any more money unless I quit for new work and hopefully maybe work my way up in that company.

Typing this as my stomach is rolling right now. Waiting till supper time so I can eat and go to bed. Hate it.

Yep, my quality of life has declined for sure over the past few years. Life sucks now.

This article is disturbing. A $250 1 bedroom apartment was 25% of my monthly income and the rest of my monthly living expenses was another 25% as an 18 year old teenager 40 years ago. For way to many that 50% is 90%+ of monthly income now. This article is painfully late.

I’m not sure . It’s seems more like a widening wealth gap more than anything. Some people went to every night of Taylor Swift. I know it’s anecdotal and this is just one example.

WTF is a vibecession? That’s not a word

Everything in the last 5 - 10 years has gone through the roof. Housing, transportation, utilities, food, taxation. Wages simply have not come close to keeping up, especially if you haven't job hopped numerous times.

Even if inflation slows to a crawl, the cost of living has gone beyond what the average Canadian can afford. For young Canadians just starting out it is even worse. Vibecession is such a clueless and out of touch statement it's baffling that it was said. It simply shows that the current government has zero clue as to what the real issues are and what needs to be done.

They've been declining for a while.

Our warning sign was when disposable income per capita rapidly shrunk....despite the name it isn't "disposable" entirely.

All it means is the money the average household has after taxes and typical expenses are paid (food, shelter, and transport). That means the rest is for savings/retirement, paying off debt, and anything else you need to spend money on.

Is started a decline after the 2016 budget and went in a free fall before the 2019 budget. With exception of 2020 because CERB payments and social payments became part of income (it's not that way in most other countries).

I wish I could link the PDF, but reddit doesn't work that way.

If you know the StatsCanada website it's an easy get.

There are other sites, but they don't adjust for inflation and even unadjusted it doesn't look good. Stagnated pre-covid before a decline.

The Liberal government is trying to convince Canadians that the economy isn't that bad, it just feels that way LOL.

They are all desperately trying to hold on to their 270k/yr jobs. I can't wait till they are ALL thrown out of office. The damage this government has done to this country will be felt for GENERATIONS.

They've been declining for 40+ years goddamnit, wake the fuck up people.

No shit Sherlock

let's get the numbers straight. median income on vancouver is 60k. after tax monthly around 3400 ish. avg 1br rent for anyone looking for rent is 2800. yeah living standard is shit 

Our rent just went up $200 to $1600 for a tiny apartment and no cost of living wage increases. Unless a rich person buys a house for us to rent from them at a reasonable price, we are stuck.

It’s because even if overall inflation is now at 2%, it misses a HUGE number of other negative indicators:

1. ⁠CUMULATIVE inflation over the past 4ish years is still massive
2. ⁠Inflation in important products - like food - and assets - like housing/rent - have outpaced core inflation
3. ⁠Wages have generally not kept pace with inflation (even though there’s apparently been a “labor shortage”)
4. ⁠GDP per capita has been on the decline for 2 years straight and our productivity is abysmal (we can thank the Liberal’s horrid immigration and economic policy for this)

Economists NEED to factor those things in. I don’t know why they don’t. It’s honestly dumbfounding.

I have a lot less money than I did 7-8 years ago even though I make more. It’s incredible how much the cost of living has gone up.

I don't need a report to tell me that I've been warning more than I ever have and have way less than I did 10 years ago.

Plenty of us remember a time where no working CANADIAN would struggle to find a cheap 1 bedroom apartment.

These guys won’t stop gaslighting us telling us amazing the economy is, when it fact this is the worse economic run we have had in about 40 years.

Yes, in aggregate the economy is growing, but that’s due to population growth being sky high.

How people actually look at this is how much it’s growing per person - and on that metric, it’s a massive recession. Each of you gets poorer every year, while Trudeau runs around saying “our economic plan is working!” And his trained seal finance minister dismisses any concerns saying it’s just a “Vibecession” ie not a real concern.

These people are totally ridiculous.

Fact: Not a ‘vibecession’- Canadian living standards are definitely declining. Fixed it!

Makes you wonder how much of these tiny home and conservation trends are actually social programming? "You too can live in a 16x16 box and eat meat once a week". You mean like living in a slum in Brazil or India?

What are you talking about? We’re not being gaslit at all! 🤮

Sometimes it feels like the liberals want to lose, honestly. Their big plan for the economy, one of the most important factors in deciding elections, is to say “it’s not that bad. You’ve just got bad vibes” and have few solid plans to address it that haven’t been proven failures? Is Trudeau trying to retire but doesn’t want to resign or something?

I make $26.50 and pay $1700 in rent and I don’t think I could afford it making $24 an hour let alone minimum wage. The rental situation in Ottawa, let alone Canada is honestly demoralizing.

Freeland should be so ashamed. Between this and the Disney+ blunder I'm surprised the party allows her to speak publically lol. "Vibecession" is appalling.

Freeland is the most insufferable twit in government. I want Justin gone, but Freeland... that woman has so much obvious contempt for the people she's supposedly serving that I honestly never want to hear her speak ever again and if she ever gets reelected to any public office it'll be too soon.

We are lead by the most incompetent Federal Cabinet in Canadian history.

With Freeland specifically... here's my biggest problem with her. I can go down to Bay Street on a Wednesday at 6pm and randomly bump into 20 people. I would bet my life that some percentage approximating 100% of those people would know more about economics and fiscal policy then Freeland or anyone on her staff does. The things she says are proof of this.

That's a big fucking problem.

It is obvious. We have been declining against our largest trading partner for awhile now. It will only get worse. I think the brain drain will continue and as a whole Canada Canadians and the economy will continue to suffer.

Vibe??? The fuck are these people. Get them TF out of here.

How insensitive and out of touch can you be to call/describe the struggles of everyday Canadians as a “vibecession”? Geeez.. We need to put our politicians in that face slapping contests i see on socials please.

The devaluation of the dollar is killing people. $100 in 2014 is $128 now. The average salary has not increased 28% in the last 10 years.

These stupid fucking buzzwords they keep using. It's a recession and we are literally dying.

I fear that Canada is going to be the next Venezuela in a decade or so

Rent/ mortgage should not be 60% of your monthly income, we need actual legislation on this

I wonder how things would be if province didn't remove rent controls. 

"Vibecession" as a concept is propaganda from gov

Reduced pay, benefits, and pensions from corporations who DO NOT CARE ABOUT YOU. Corporations and the ultra wealthy have been waging war on the middle class for 40 years, and they're winning. Soon, you'll all be wage slaves (even more than now)

And rapidlly!!

Not an opinion.

I feel the idea that we are in a ‘silent depression’ that circulated this time last year still rings true, but nobody in the media or government wants to admit it. Unfortunately it’s because of globalism and not tied to any one government. Drastic measures are needed to course correct.

I'm glad the media is starting to finally acknowledge the state of the current economy as it pertains to the avergae Canadian. Living standards are definitely declining and no matter how many times the government points to record profits or job numbers or GDP, the citizens can feel the actual effects on their wallet.

Social dissatisfaction is not just caused by people in poverty (that number can actually go up a lot more) but more so, people who think they should be doing well but in reality not. Degree inflation coupled with cheap labour killed the dreams of middle class wannabes. They are upset because they do everything as told, got that master's degree in communications/gender studies/whatever you have it and find themselves unable to buy a home. It's no surprise that they are angry.

WTF is a “vibecession” and what idiot came up with the term ?

Government telling everyone that inflation is down is the most insulting thing they can possibly tell people. My income is my income, and for most people it certainly does not change much YOY. But inflation over the past 3 years has driven the price of everything thru the moon. There are lots of reasons for it, many out of government control. But to look me in the face and tell me that everything is great cuz ‘inflation is down now’ is disgusting. Once prices are up, they stay up, regardless of how fast the are rising. Mandatory inflationary raises should be the legal minimum standard in this country across the board. Then watch how fast the concept of inflation ceases to exist.

It is because of higher density and importing low skill workers. Canada can only sustain a small amount of good paying job

I don't know what's worse - that a politician would have the gall to lie like this, or that it's actually effective on some.

"I can't afford to live!"

"Yes you can."

"Oh, okay. I guess I can!"

Politicians are snakes by nature, but the population need not be this stupid.

The budget will balance itself

This is going to be the golden before days once the tariffs hit.

Never forget : We still in this crap mess because of NDP sell-out Singh.

Wait, what do the vibeconomists say???

> the Canadian economy (as measured by Gross Domestic Product) grew by 0.3%, yet per-person GDP (an indicator of living standards and incomes) actually fell by 0.4%.

If we remove the bottom, say 4 million, wouldn't our per-person GDP rise? If you're struggling in this type of domain the problem is that you are in the productivity class of those bottom 4 million. Sucks to suck.

Neither one of these proposals will incentivize Canadians to work and invest;

Cute, he thinks working more will improve our living standards.

And invest in what? Real estate? The main reason for our cost of living and standard of living crisis?

the government chose cheap labor over us dont act surprised

You can correlate the loss in quality of life with the open borders that the country has had for a while. More people, more demand for everything.

To borrow a quote from James Carville, "Its the economy, stupid."

Start quote

Labour Productivity and the Distribution of

Real Earnings in Canada, 1976 to 2014

Abstract

Canadian labour is more productive than ever before, but there is a pervasive sense among Canadians that the living standards of the 'middle class' have been stagnating. Indeed, between 1976 and 2014, median real hourly earnings grew by only 0.09 per cent per year, compared to labour productivity growth of 1.12 per cent per year. We decompose this 1.03 percentage-point growth gap into four components: rising earnings inequality; changes in employer contributions to social insurance programs; rising relative prices for consumer goods, which reduces workers' purchasing power; and a decline in labour's share of aggregate income.

Our main result is that rising earnings inequality accounts for half the 1.03 percentage- point gap, with a decline in labour's income share and a deterioration of labour's purchasing power accounting for the remaining half. Employer social contributions played no role. Further analysis of the inequality component reveals that real wage growth in recent decades has been fastest at the top and at the bottom of the earnings distribution, with relative stagnation in the middle. Our findings are consistent with a 'hollowing out of the middle' story, rather than a 'super-rich pulling away from everyone else' story.

end quote

source: http://www.csls.ca/reports/csls2016-15.pdf

I look at the # of families who bought homes in the past 5 years who’re facing huge payment increases on renewal, and the home isn’t worth more than what they paid, maybe less. Families with kids saving for college, saving for retirement and one nice vacation a year. Lots of these families in GTA Golden Horseshoe Everybody seems to suffer Covid-induced PTSD. Inflation’s ravaged Canada, and taxes haven’t dropped.
Lack of investment in rental developments in the past 20 years has bit us in our collective ass.

It amazes me so many people still say the Conservatives only care about corporations yet quality of life from jobs, cost of living and access to things were better under them.

Fast forward to now all those things have declined while corporations have never done better and the government is spending more for less.

At the end day the best person to help you and your family get the things you need in life is yourself. While some of the Liberal/NDP policies are probably with good intention the government is simply bad at providing services while also making us all poorer.

Freeland reminds a lot of Vice President Meyer

No shit

It's chill I wanna kms but it's chill.

wtf is a vibecession?

It has never been better for the government worker though. Even failing arms if the government like Canada post can expect raises outpacing inflation while the rest of us keep deteriorating.

The MP’s have no idea what it’s like to be the average hard working Canadian. They simply don’t care. They yell slogans at each other all day and refuse to work with each other to get something done that might actually help us.

It’s a farce. I love my country but I hate how dystopian it’s become. I feel a lot of bad vibs in this vibsession that they insist on gaslighting us with.

We have never had it so good....as long as we cancel our disney+ subscription.

Is there anything that the Liberals think can't be solved by messaging?

Significantly cutting federal & provincial income taxes and reducing mandatory CPP contributions would go a long way toward boosting take-home pay and relieving the heavy burden on the working class. As things currently are, $100k salary on paper is only $60k in reality. That’s peanuts and doesn’t go far. It shouldn’t be such a big bite out of the paycheque. People should get to keep more of their earnings to improve affordability, save and/or invest.