We all know that life in Canada is expensive, but one person has people talking after questioning if they could survive in Canada with a salary between $70,000 – $75,000.
On Reddit’s “Canada Immigrants” thread, one user, who identified themselves as being from Sri Lanka, shared on Tuesday that their husband was considering requesting a transfer from his current position in Sri Lanka to one of his company’s Canadian offices. However, she says they are second-guessing the move.
“With the inflation and housing crisis in Canada, me and my husband are having second thoughts on migrating to Canada,” the Reddit user wrote.
“Most probably he would get a job offer with 70-75k$ as a dewatering engineer (5 [years] experience) and can apply through express entry. I too have a degree and less than [a] year [of] experience (software engineer). Both of us have bachelor’s degrees.”
Survival with a 70k-75k$ salary
byu/qwerty_the_betta inCanadaImmigrant
“Considering the taxes, rent and usual expenses, how would [the] quality of life [be] for us?,” the user asked.
Other people on the forum shared their thoughts, with the general consensus being that it all depends on which part of Canada they are planning on relocating to.
“A lot depends [on] where you move, there are many people here with engineer degrees and Ontario specifically is scrapping experience requirements on job postings because so many people can’t find jobs,” one person responded.
“[With] $70-75K each well managed you should be ok. If it’s only one income at 70-75k you will struggle.”
“If the company branch is in high cost of living area in Canada, [a] single income [of] $75K is not enough. For example, Toronto, Vancouver, Ottawa, etc. I would say your household income must be at least $120K or above to live comfortably,” another person said. “Otherwise you may end up struggling to keep up with finances.”
“If your husband can get a $75K job in a city like Winnipeg or Edmonton, then you should be OK on that single income. But your life would not be living on luxury. You will have to budget and can live a comfortable life.”
WHAT DOES THE AVERAGE CANADIAN THINK?
A report from research firm Abacus Data revealed that on average Canadians believe they need to earn an annual salary of at least $79,280 before taxes to live comfortably.
After surveying 1,750 Canadian adults and 1,750 Ontario adults from April 28 to May 4, 2023, the report found those who had a household income of less than $75,000 said they would need to earn more money to live comfortably, while those making $75,000-plus said they were able to live comfortably on their current income.
The firm revealed that the amount of money people felt they needed to earn to live comfortably varied by location. Torontonians felt they needed to earn the most at $96,125/annually, while people in Quebec City had the lowest salary expectations at $63,128/annually.
This is significant because someone making minimum wage in Quebec or Ontario makes far less than either of those desired numbers. Based on an average 40-hour work week, someone earning the current Ontario minimum wage ($16.55/hour), working 52 weeks of the year would earn $34,424 before taxes. Meanwhile, someone earning Quebec’s minimum wage ($15.25) would make $31,720.
When it came down to different age groups, there were also some variations on how much money respondents thought was needed to fund a comfortable lifestyle.
Before tax deductions, for Gen Z, that number was nearly $101,000, while Millennials said they needed almost $87,400. Gen Xers said that $84,700 was the magic number, while Boomers needed at least $63,753.
The margin of error for a comparable probability-based random sample of the same size is plus or minus 2.34 per cent, 19 times out of 20.
