How Does Canada's Cost of Living REALLY Compare to USA?

Cost of living in Canada vs USA compared, looking at median income, cost of housing, cost of everyday expenses and car ownership and healthcare, and sharing our outcomes. Is Canada or America cheaper? It depends.

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[MakeThatChange]

Please note US deductions are missing Social Security and Medicare which sum up to around additional 7%. These deductions will be accounted for in future videos.

[indorseable]

I'm a Canadian that has been living in Seattle for 7 years now. It's absolutely true that Seattle is a very affordable place to live in because it has very high paying jobs, no state income tax and relatively OK rents. So you end up saving a lot more money versus Vancouver or Toronto. In addition, the career ceilings in the US tend to be higher than Canada so in the long-run, you can make a lot more money.

[S]

Cheapest house in niagara falls, on is 600k. Cheapest house in niagara falls, ny is 60k. Nothing else to say

[balexic]

In 63 years I’ve seen many Canadian’s move to the USA. I’ve lived in upper middle class neighbourhoods all my life. Most of my neighbours were working in very good jobs (lots of IBM families). Several moved to the USA because they were highly educated & making big money. Moving to the USA is an option for these types of families because the wages for top people are much higher. If you’re wealthy in America it makes sense to live there. If however you are lower middle class or poorer, it’s not good to move to the USA because the state doesn’t give you much (health care, public education etc).

Canada is definitely North America’s most successful socialist country. Not quite as socialist as Europe. We are half way between capitalism in the USA & socialist Europe.

Canada strives to spread wealth amongst its citizens. USA is the opposite, survival of the fittest. If you are at the top of your field, then you can live well in America. If you’re not then life can suck.

There are other factors too. America has warmer weather generally in the winter months (warmer than Canada). That was always a plus for the USA. However things have changed with global warming. All of America (minus Alaska) bakes under intense heat for 3 months or more every summer. That is making the USA almost unliveable for some. Canada’s summer climate is much better. Plus the winters are not as cold as they were back in the 1960’s and 1970’s. So climate wise Canada is closing the gap on liveability.

It all depends on what kind of person you are. If you’re Conservative, make lots of money and don’t care about your fellow citizens then America will suit you just fine. If you’re more Liberally minded and care about your fellow man (and money & consumerism doesn’t mean all that much to you), then Canada is where you want to be.

I’ve known many Canadians that have money, and they spend some time in warmer climates for weeks to months at a time. So they enjoy socialism for the most part and dip their toes into capitalism for the warmer weather in the winter.

Oh… education is another issue. Canada provides excellent public education and even private education for everyone. Canadians are highly educated per capita. Canada has 56% of the population with post secondary education.

Education in the USA is only good for wealthy people in wealthy areas. If you live in a poor or lower class parts of America your public education can be spotty. I’m thinking of Alabama and some other southern states where auto workers working for Japanese car manufacturers couldn’t read properly and the Japanese had to use picture books to train some of those employees. In fact Toyota decided to expand its Ontario production facilities because it’s too much of a bother for them to educate their workers in the south. Canadians come out of school well educated. In America it can be vastly different depending on where you are. Again the American system has a lot of people falling between the cracks… and they don’t care. To me America has a cruel system. Very Darwinian (survival of the fittest and for anyone else too bad).

I see many American’s that live abroad on YouTube. They are the only Americans that truly understand what America is all about because they’ve experienced living in another culture. So they know. If you listen to them they will explain why they don’t like living in the USA, for pretty much what I’ve described in this post. Materialism, Darwinian system, and a work culture that puts people into an early grave. They feel like they live a more relaxed life abroad and they are happy with that.

[patty]

I’ve lived in the US and in Canada (still visit regularly Canada) and my conclusion is that I would be middle-class in Canada, but I’m upper middle-class in the US.

I live in a good size city in the US and I can still buy a brand new four bedroom two car house in a superb school system for $500, 000. $3.30 for a gallon of milk, same for a gallon of gas.

[Userfan]

I live in Texas and as a single person I get to save a shit ton of money, doing a comparable job in Canada with a comparable lifestyle I would probably just breakeven.

[XMG]

I'm a millionaire in vancouver, and I struggle to pay my bills and mortgage every month living frugally, I don't eat out ever, don't goto cinemas, can't remember the last time I travelled. Still wears the same shirt from 20 years ago. This is how I survive here. You also failed to mention in Canada, the wait time in clinic and hospitals are average 8-12 hours. My aunt passed away in Burnaby while waiting 10+ months for breast cancer surgery. This is the kind of free health care we have, and everything is getting exponentially worse now year by year with trudeau's $2.2 trillion dollar national debt, while he still waits for his budget to balance itself and flood the country with foreign workers to keep the economy barely afloat. My property is now tanking in value because we're in a depression where no one is buying, so I'm paying a mortgage that's about $200k over what my property is now worth. The list goes on, most people don't realize how bad it is here.

[cletusvandamme]

American here. You left out ONE very important metric: CRIME RATE. Compared to the U.S., Canada seems to have virtually little to no crime! That is a very important consideration, in my opinion. It does affect your quality of life to an extent.

[keithpalmer]

I am from Missoula Montana originally. Now I am in Lethbridge southern Alberta. These cities are comparable in size. Cost of living really varies based on location in the USA. In Missoula Montana my home town rent has gone through the roof with many new people moving in during COVID and there is a relatively large University in town (14, 000 students) . But in other Montana cities like Great Falls rent is half or even less. Rent is definitely the #1 variable in cost of living in the USA. Food is very cheap in the USA however so are most consumer goods. The pay working at Taco Bell in Missoula is now like $20 USD an hour because they cannot find enough workers. Here in Lethbridge the pay at fast food is pretty low like $15 CAD hour to start or minimum wage in Alberta. Rent in Lethbridge is still less than Missoula though. Food is much more expensive up here in Canada though as is insurance and cell/internet services. I would also say HEALTH CARE EXPENSES in the USA can be absolutely killer to your health and your bank account as well! Health insurance is insane if you are not actually poor or rich enough to afford it. I have a friend who makes decent money but his monthly insurance for a family of 4 is $1500 just for health insurance! Then add in the BANKRUPTCY from health expenses and the USA sucks to live in if you have any real health issues!

[MikesGoogleAcct]

The Social Security + Medicare is the equivalent to Canada's CPP and EI. Except they total 7.65% on incomes up to 168K. Employers match to the total is 15.3%. In Canada CPP + EI is about 7.6% to a lower maximum of $63K to $73K. Employers match an additional 8.25%. This makes the taxes between the two counties closer, especially for those with incomes between $70K and $168K.

[nicktankard]

I live in Vancouver and I recently compared it to Seattle. It made me depressed. The average salary for highly skilled workers is even higher in Seattle. In my field of tech it’s 2-3x higher. While the average house price is 2x lower in Seattle. Also Seattle is significantly bigger than Vancouver if you compare metro areas. And has more stuff to do.

[paulforgang]

I'm a dual citizen and currently living in Calgary, Canada. I'm retired and over 65. Overall, real estate in the US is cheaper but property taxes are higher. Taxes are MUCH less in the USA especially for retirees. I'm eligible for Medicare in the USA and, BETTER and MORE COMPREHENSIVE Healthcare in the USA. Canadian Healthcare lacks enough doctors and specialists.

I tell people that my quality of life may be better in Calgary, but, jobs and income are much better and plentiful in the USA. I've lived and worked in Houston. I'd definitely be there now if I had a young family.

[vivamuslibero]

We have lived in Vancouver and were essentially priced out of it. We no longer liver there. We moved as a consequence of high monthly rental prices. There are things we miss as well as things we do not miss (but more things we don't miss). It used to be very safe in most areas but that has now very much changed. 10 years ago you never heard about random attacks or women being stabbed in the neck from behind while waiting in line at a coffee shop. Violent crime seems to be on the increase. Traffic is dysfunctional. The roads are systematically being taken away from drivers. Parking spaces for cars are being taken away being replaced with permanent bike lanes for a select few that only use them in nice weather. The weather is actually terrible accept for perhaps a couple months in the summer (if you're lucky). A million dollars plus for an 800 sq ft condo that comes with drug users and violent criminals in your back alley, who wants that?Restaurants and services are dropping like flies because they can not afford to do business with the city's high tax regime and affordability crisis. Eventually Vancouver will just be left with 100 story unlivable sky boxes with no services for the residents, no roads to let you travel anywhere and uncompetitive taxation rates that inept and starving city councils demand from their citizens. Goodbye, Vancouver....good riddance.

[chrisphipps]

Thank you!!! Well done! When I lived in the USA I tried to write a similar report for work that included the costs of living over wall but had to give up and only cite the tax differences. The report was supposed to compare 'lifestyle' of people we hired in Singapore, New York, Boston and Toronto. This was a few years ago, but the only difference between a modest lifestyle in Toronto and New York was health care costs.

[TonusFabri]

One omission in the video caught my attention. When it comes to health care costs, it's not just doctor visits and surgery. Hospital costs are huge, and in most cases, not optional; if you're in a serious accident, or catch a severe disease, you wind up in hospital. Most hospital costs in Canada are covered by provincial government health care systems, so this large part of health care expense is covered, not by Federal income tax, as mentioned in the video, but by provincial taxes, often (as in BC) by the provincial sales tax.

[larsedik]

@15:16, you are comparing income in Canadian dollars with income in U.S. dollars, and therefore you need to divide the Canadian amount by 1.25 (or multiply by 0.8) to get the equivalent in U.S. dollars. Therefore, the Canadian take home pay in U.S. dollars would be $4497, compared to $5481 for U.S. take home pay. You are therefore wrong to say that the overall incomes are close, especially since you removed Seattle from the equation. You would have to do the same for housing costs.

[philliphartman]

Canada has the world's best health care system, as long as you don't have to use it.

It's like Schrodinger's Health Care System.

[harry]

the most brutal yet most factual comparison is Vancouver bc vs Seattle... tons of people travel between these 2 cities/metro areas weekly, and they certainly can see the difference especially in recent years

[DanPocketRocket]

Living in Vancouver is expensive and how we survive is by having multigenerational housing. A 2 million dollar 8 bedroom house divided by 3 families becomes more affordable when shared. The housing should have multiple living rooms and kitchens to keep the peace. - I will not respond to any negative comments

[ChrisPollitt]

Thanks for crunching the numbers. Vancouver (where I live) costs are unbelievable. The only way we can survive is a) we paid off our home over a decade ago and b) we have low expenses (no car, no kids)