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Uncharted Economic Waters Ahead ! How living costs compare then and now, Wages Not Keeping UP!

396 views · Published 12 November 2017 · 5:18 · Indexed 8 November 2026

Channel: Mike Martins · 2017 · News & Politics

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My Opinion: Calm seas Ahead ! I say No way Jose ! Its gonna get expensive fast Baton the Hatches because this economic Ship Ride is gonna take us into parts unknown! 
 !WHAT I HAVE BEEN TALKING ABOUT THE LAST 5 YEARS !
The decline of the manufacturing sector started weighing on wages, as well

Amy Clausen wonders whether her kids will ever enjoy a life like the one she had growing up in Metro Vancouver.


It’s a thought that weighs on the 38-year-old drama teacher and mother of two while she spends maternity leave in her new home, a ferry ride away in Victoria.

Clausen remembers a childhood in a single-family home with a yard, making many friends over the years.

But when she became an adult, a condo renting at $2,400 per month was all her family could afford.

After relocating to Victoria in September, the couple started saving as much as $600 a month in rent for a three-bedroom home.

There, she’s found a vibrant community with young families and kids all about.

“We notice so many more families with young children” in Victoria compared to Vancouver, Clausen told Global News.

Stories like Clausen’s are common fare in Canada’s two red-hot housing markets of Vancouver and Toronto. They are part of the narrative that’s feeding the perception that today’s young people have it tougher than previous generations did at their age.

But does Canada really have a generational inequality issue?

Global News put that theory to the test by combing through the numbers.

In 1977, as a wave of young Canadians born right after the Second World War was establishing themselves in the workforce, the average hourly earnings for employees peaked at over $24, adjusted for inflation. Today, young Canadians taking up their first job face a labour market where things have barely changed: The average hourly pay for full-time employees in 2016 was $27.70, according to Statistics Canada.

But wages didn’t just stagnate for 40 years. A look at the breakdown by age reveals that, especially for men, earnings for younger workers actually dropped and climbed back up between 1980 and 2017. As the chart below shows, wages fell for Canadians aged 17 to 34 through the 1980s, largely stagnated in the 1990s and didn’t start recouping the lost ground until around 2005.

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