Canadians Owe More , Polar Temps, CPP Survivor Benefits and #MoneyTalk
Stats Canada got out, just in time for your Christmas spending guilt, Distributions of household economic accounts for income, consumption, saving and wealth of Canadian households, 2016. What is it telling you? Canadians Owe More! For every dollar of disposable income, you owe more than you did previously! An interesting tidbit from the report is:
Estimated reading time: 5 minutes
Table of contents
In 2016, the national average debt-to-disposable-income ratio was 172.1%
Simply stated for every $1 you have to spend you owe $1.72, isn’t that delightful? If you read the report in more detail you will see the real debt-load of lower-income Canadians is horrific (a mind-bending 333.4%). That is very scary if interest rates start going up quickly.
If that doesn’t put you into a festive spending spree, good! Time to start figuring out how the heck to get out of the debt trap, so Canadians owe more be a thing of the past.
One more happy thought to consider:
Similar to wealth, the top 20% of income earning Canadian households accounted for 40.9% of total household disposable income.
Top 20% accounts for 40% of the disposable income? They better start spending!!!!
In Ottawa, the snow came down, and then lovely frigid temperatures arrived quickly afterwards, a delightful 1-2 punch. Thursday morning I drove in behind a car with Florida plates. First I wondered, “Who did he or she insult to end up being sent up here?” and then I wondered, “Have they ever heard of snow tires?”. Yes it is Canada, but it doesn’t have to be this cold this soon, does it?
A very interesting policy change for CPP survivor benefits outlined in , New CPP changes give survivors full benefits immediately. Previously this only happened when the survivor got older, but now it seems to be right away? I would be curious to find out what might have triggered this change of heart by the governments ? Someone commented, “It is the right thing to do…”, but that is rarely a driving force for Government Policy Changes.
My Recent Writings
In the summer I visited the Halton County Radial Railway with my family (my son loves trains), and saw a very interesting ad in one of the old TTC trams that turned into this week’s only article, Toronto Housing Bubble ? Yes housing prices have been out of control many times in Toronto, this is not the first time (nor will it be the last). I note no one has left a comment guessing on the possible year that poster was from, c’mon readers!
Micro Blogging on Finance
Glad to hear the CRA is starting to reconsider their policy change on the DTC, we shall see what comes of this.
How about a Bitcoin one? You’ll like this one, it is deep.
