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Canada Average Weekly Earnings Failing To Keep Up With Inflation

The Huffington Post Canada  |  Posted: 04/26/2012 11:31 am Updated: 04/26/2012 11:34 am

Wages in Canada are growing more slowly than inflation, meaning the average working Canadian is effectively getting poorer, data from StatsCan shows.

Statistics Canada said Thursday that average weekly earnings of non-farm payroll employees rose to $886.45 in February, up 0.2 per cent from January. On a year-over-year basis, earnings rose 1.8 per cent.

But inflation was 2.6 per cent in February, dropping to 1.9 per cent in March.

The year-over-year growth in weekly earnings was slowed by a fourth straight monthly decline in hours worked.

Average weekly earnings increased in every province in the 12 months to February and growth was above the national average in six provinces, with Saskatchewan and Newfoundland and Labrador leading the way, StatsCan said. Wage growth was strongest in construction and wholesale trade.

The problem of relative declining wages has been plaguing the Canadian economy in recent months.

"The nominal wage gains being as soft as they are has created a condition where the average Canadian isn't keeping up with the cost of filling their grocery carts, filling their cars and heating their homes," Scotiabank senior economist Derek Holt said in November.

Holt suggested that workers worried about the global economic situation may actually be depressing their own wages by not demanding pay raises.

"With all the shocks happening to the world economy, many people are just happy having a job as opposed to going to their boss and demanding a wage gain," he said.

-- With files from The Canadian Press

What Is Inflation?
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Inflation refers to the increasing price of goods and services that ultimately decreases a nation's purchasing power. As the cost of living increases, each unit of currency buys less. The result is a decrease in the value of a nation's currency.
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Vancouver Canuck
0 Fans
07:26 PM on 04/27/2012
No one so far is talking about the REAL cause of inflation, which is corporate profiteering, and satisfying their shareholders with a promise of year over year increase in profits.

Prices go up because big businesses and corporations raise them to make their intended year to year profit targets. And then in domino like fashion, those additional costs get passed on to the end user/consumer. Like a slow, strangling snake, this collusion of the 1% have systematically taken away many of the potential wealth generating and managing tools, e.g. a bank account that actually pays a decent rate of interest, and then turns around and hikes up the cost of service fees. All that additional money doesn't get funneled into providing better products or services, it gets added to the profit margin. And then these greedy bastards strive for and demand an even higher profit margin next year. And at whose cost? OURS. That's right, YOURS and MINE.

Don't be fooled. All the math in the world that calculates changes in prices for goods and services, GDP, inflation, etc. is just a smoke screen to distract us from knowing the real cause of inflation, which is the profiteering of the big business/corporate sector, AT OUR EXPENSE.
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Doug Earl
12 Fans
10:55 PM on 04/26/2012
Don't get mad, get a union!
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Dale Chan
Hope is both panacea and poison.
239 Fans
03:18 AM on 04/27/2012
Just hope that your job doesn't get labeled as an "essential" service.
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swarf maker
30 Fans
10:04 PM on 04/26/2012
Much of that inflation came to us from our neighbours to the south. Their QE 1&2 put a lot of money into the hands of the banksters who, seeing that the stock markets were flat, put it into commodity futures. Thanks to the US dollar's status as the world's reserve currency and to the globalization scam we get to share in the inflation resulting from the lousy monetary policy of the corrupt US government and their bankster masters.
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Billy Banter
68 Fans
10:51 AM on 04/27/2012
You are spot on. They will continue to print money and keep interest rates artificially low to destroy any savings and force people to speculate. You are seeing the largest transfer of wealth in the history of the world. The sad thing is that is was based on fraud and perhaps purposely done.
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olitenup
1292 Fans
08:28 PM on 04/26/2012
How is that conservative Harper working out for you all? Seems like they (conservatives) are destroying you all like they are doing to US.
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HarleyOpenRoad
2175 Fans
08:37 PM on 04/26/2012
Having only an avg $35,000/yr income is definitely and only a First World problem.
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Another Pesky Canadian
Talk - action = 0
770 Fans
08:48 PM on 04/26/2012
Thanks for your concern.

Canadians are watching Harper unravel almost everything we ever recognized as Canada and we seem to be unable to anything to stop him.

Sometimes a thing needs to break down completely before it can be properly fixed.
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olitenup
1292 Fans
08:54 PM on 04/26/2012
The environment can't wait. Too much will die.
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Dale Chan
Hope is both panacea and poison.
239 Fans
03:19 AM on 04/27/2012
Problem is when our civilization breaks down, it's going to be a global break down.
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Vik Dhawan
20 Fans
06:26 PM on 04/26/2012
This does suck, I am not going to pretend it does not. But there is a slight lag between inflation and wage growth. I think this partly such a shock because we just came from a fairly lengthy period of low inflation. But what tends to happen is that when prices rise, you don't immediately run to your manager and say give me a raise right now, there is a bit of a time lag. Again it still sucks but I think there should be more context.
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All Seeing Guy
Center of the storm
440 Fans
06:09 PM on 04/26/2012
Good thing we have neo-cons around to demand the public service enjoy the same below cost-of-living wages of the private sector.
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olitenup
1292 Fans
08:29 PM on 04/26/2012
give them time, they want everyone but themselves to suffer.
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paintitblacker
shit happens life goes on
121 Fans
06:01 PM on 04/26/2012
user fees hydro increases higher taxes,property taxes everything seems to be increasing in cost, but when your union rep want s to negotiate a new contract , your hit with legal action like bill 22 or being declared an essential service. At the same time government and utility review boards ask for and receive rate hikes of several % ,but we can't have a cost of living adjustment to our incomes . right now due to illness my wife and i subsist on 12.000.00 per year , were going backwarks and into debt every day, Our federal and government is a bunch of selfentitled elitist pigs,and the same goes for the b.c. provincial pigs as well. may 1st general strike
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albertarick
These are questions for wise men with skinny arms
307 Fans
05:58 PM on 04/26/2012
The ability of the financial/political/screw you middle class complex to blame the victims is beyond understanding. "workers worried about the global economic situation may actually be depressing their own wages by not demanding pay raises". Yes, its the workers fault, that shocks imposed on them by hedge fund managers and commodity traders have made their jobs security tenuous. Thanks for the heads up Derek Holt... Idiot.
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nathanielhebert
7 Fans
 
05:32 PM on 04/26/2012
100% of my income goes to rent and food even though I work 60-80s a week. If something drastic should happen during the month, I'll be eating dirt. What if I wanted kids or a home in the future?

We're creating a culture where employers can exploit their workers.
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paintitblacker
shit happens life goes on
121 Fans
06:08 PM on 04/26/2012
I've had 2 employers tell me that i'm laid off because they signed an agreement with the government to employ immigrants. these people are no more skilled or able to do my job better than me , whats going on with this country, it's becomeing more fascist every day
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BlackRabbit
175 Fans
05:02 PM on 04/26/2012
Worrying about wages month-to-month is silly. Here's the big picture:

http://worthwhile.typepad.com/worthwhile_canadian_initi/2011/11/real-wages-during-the-recession.html

It shows that real wages have gone up more or less continually since 2003, even through the last recession.
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albertarick
These are questions for wise men with skinny arms
307 Fans
06:04 PM on 04/26/2012
Average wages as used in the above article are skewed urealistically upward by the extremely high wages earned by the upper % of people. BTW month to month is how most people pay their bills so, silly or not it is their picture.
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BlackRabbit
175 Fans
08:01 PM on 04/26/2012
First, the same link also shows median wage information, which is insensitive to the effects of "outliers" such as extremely high wage earners. The pattern is pretty much the same for mean and median.

Second, long-term trends are far more important to households than short-term fluctuations, for it dictates whether they retire in wealth or poverty. Those who react to every twitch and grunt of the economy are fools, for they miss the big picture.
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EasyZee
267 Fans
02:44 AM on 04/27/2012
None of those charts show the wage relative to the increased cost of living, which is what this article is about. Since it doesn't show whether or not the wages have increased to keep up with the cost of living I just don't see the point of your link. Of course wages are going up, but not at the rate the cost of living is going up. Furthermore, the charts are from 2000-2010 ans 1995-2010. If they really want to show the long term trajectory, go back to 1970 to today, back when one parent could work and still buy a house, a car, and raise a family.
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Johnny LaRue
political correctness is just incorrect
56 Fans
04:45 PM on 04/26/2012
The problem is the inflation is on a lot of necessities like electricity,fuel,insurance and taxes(not a necessity but allways rising higher then the stated rate). Alot of other things are stable but with basics taking larger then inflation jumps it makes it even worse then the rate shown. It dosn't matter if a big ticket item remains the same when you aren't buying it anyway but trying to pay the basics. The west may be doing well but McQuinty is turning Ontario into a 3rd world cesspool. Hopefully Alberta will send some equaliization payments so McQuinty's gang of putzs can continue their Onege,E-health samsung ways.
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youhavetobekiddingme
520 Fans
 
10:35 AM on 04/27/2012
yes like Ontario supported the rest of Canada for decades.
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NoelOne
26 Fans
04:25 PM on 04/26/2012
Canadians are getting poorer because wages aren't keeping up with inflation. YA THINK?!?!!? People have been saying this for five years and finally, someone says, "Hey, did you know?" The top 10% keep getting richer with the lowest tax rates in 40 years while the rest of us are just getting poorer.
Thanks for NOTHING, Herr Harper.
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PiperSniper
151 Fans
03:18 PM on 04/26/2012
Welcome to 2008?
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tripas de leche
220 Fans
03:24 PM on 04/26/2012
The gap between the rich and the poor is widening in front of our eyes. It's worse in the US. If we wait long enough, large numbers of us will be poor.
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PiperSniper
151 Fans
03:35 PM on 04/26/2012
I lost my business in 2006 so I experienced the 2008 drop two years before it happened to my neighbours and fellow citizens and am still struggling to get back to my "2000" level! My concern is what is happening in Canada and always has been. We are not a little twin of the US.
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WorkInCanada
Life is hard; it's harder if you're stupid. John W
602 Fans
02:56 PM on 04/26/2012
Another good reason to support unions and their workers and their advocates.
Slave labour doesn't have to include literal iron shackles....inflation and stagnant wages and no representation or job security are figurative shackles that are being thrown on more and more Canadian workers.
Support a union today to support Canadian families quality of life.
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jeremyemilio
My micro-bio is NOT empty
195 Fans
02:55 PM on 04/26/2012
Funny... I didn't think you were allowed talking about inflation around here... I thought it was a myth.
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