Canadians have been gorging themselves on debt for the past decade. Far higher than other OCED countries. That's left them in a very precarious situation.[1]
A huge chunk of our economy is real-estate and finance[1], so that's not too surprising. Everyone thinks the path to getting rich is to buy houses / condos. They're in for a nasty surprise I think. It's never a good idea to go crazy leveraging debt. When you combine that with all of the insane student loan debt people go into (I know someone on their 4th university degree!), then it's a recipe for disaster.
Statement still stands, public to public in many areas the US is going to cost much more (up to 3X). It just gets REALLY gross when you bring in the private schools.
They've been going into debt in order to buy housing, not on other forms of consumer spending or 'living beyond their means'.
Who sells them housing? Other Canadians.
Why do they go into so much debt? Because the nature of housing is that rising prices will squeeze out every last cent of saved money from the pockets of people trying to buy their first house.
It boggles my mind that the average house in Vancouver or Toronto costs ~20 years of average wages (Assuming you don't eat, sleep under a bridge, and don't pay any taxes.)
20 years worth of labour sure as hell did not go into building it. It's all land speculation.
At some point, it's a better financial move to rent instead of own. That is true in many American cities (much of NYC, for example). Housing bubbles happen. Try not to buy into one.
This advice sounds just as great today as it did in Vancouver, 15 years ago.
In the meantime, inflation-adjusted housing prices more than doubled. Pretty much everyone and everyone would have been better off not following your advice.
And today, in 2019 there is still no clear transition path out of the current horrorshow that is the property market. Prices are not coming down, nobody sees any mechanism by which they might come down, and too many people have too much invested in land for the government to ever encourage prices to come down.
When you rent, you are seriously gambling that property prices will not keep rising. When you own, you are seriously gambling that property prices will not fall.
The thing is, there are enormous political and economic pressures to create policies that prevent property prices from falling. As a renter, you are placing a bet against these incredibly powerful forces. It doesn't even matter if you're right - the markets may remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent.
Edit: Obviously there are complications to this. Buying and selling a house is stressful, time-intensive, and expensive. If you're only going to be in an area for 5 years, it's not as smart an idea as buying one with the intent to stay for 45 years. Obviously, it's possible that a generational shift in demographics will result in a property crash... But it's just as likely that increased immigration will offset that shift. Obviously, your city's financial situation, and likely future changes to property taxes will have an effect... The list goes on.
If things get seriously unaffordable as a renter, it's always possible to move somewhere more affordable.
Housing, on average, rises at the rate of inflation (it's closely linked to the cost of new construction), per Robert Shiller's research. Even if the housing market explodes in one area, there's almost certainly another area where it hasn't (normally one without restrictions on new construction-San Fransisco being a prime example of a place where housing prices have skyrocketed due to such restrictions).
Affordable places don't have jobs. This is not a trend that's reversing anytime soon.
> Housing, on average, rises at the rate of inflation
I don't care about the price of the average house in the country. I care about the price of a house within a commuting distance of where I can find gainful employment.
Right now, the prices of homes in those areas are skyrocketing, while the prices of homes in areas that don't have gainful employment are nosediving. Take the average, and you'll find that it tracks inflation... And is a worthless metric.
> Even if the housing market explodes in one area, there's almost certainly another area where it hasn't
Yes, and none of those areas are ones where young people can make a living.
The socially optimal thing would of course be for retirees to consider selling their million-dollar coastal metro homes and move to cheaper areas, like the interior. But as long as they have access to HELOCs, they don't feel any pressure to do them. They can just borrow money against their million-dollar home, instead of downsizing. This is also not going anywhere. It would be political suicide to force grandma and grandpa to move to the boonies, just so that their grandkids, who need to work in the city could afford to live in it.
"I care about the price of a house within a commuting distance of where I can find gainful employment."
I really didn't like it for several reasons, but not too long ago I briefly lived inside the DC beltway and had a 10 minute commute to work, and paid $1000/month for half a 2 bedroom apartment in a mid-rise that was pretty decent.
Perhaps grandkids should ask to move in with grandma? She might like the company. :)
In seriousness, not all metro areas have seen the same huge rise in rents and property values. I can personally vouch that the Baltimore-DC region offers relatively high paying jobs and housing that is adorable given those incomes. I've heard San Antonio, TX is also good on the jobs to housing costs front.
Montreal and Quebec City seem reasonable, but this is based purely on a few web searches.
I hope you end up in a place where you can start building some financial security.
Also, run the numbers on long term renting in areas where housing prices are high. There's sometimes a high opportunity cost to having a ton of your savings stuck in the down payment for a house when you could otherwise have it invested in low cost index funds or something similar.
It's such a cliche to say that real estate is always local, but it is.
Where I live, my rent was essentially 2/3rds of my gross income, but I found a place to buy for about 5 times my yearly wages and either way, I'm under 10 minutes from work.
The growth of HELOCS has been >7% for the past few years and the Bank of Canada (BOC) is starting to get worried. Canadians are not only taking on debt to buy housing, they are also leveraging housing equity for other expenses as well.[1]
BoC staff add that, “Home equity extraction may also be concealing emerging financial distress if borrowers are taking equity out of their homes to manage other debt obligations or to finance their daily expenses because they lack other sources of funds.”
Young people are screwed by having to go into debt to buy overpriced homes from retirees who are selling (or people selling their starter home, to trade up.)
Retirees who aren't selling are using the equity in their overpriced homes to live lavishly. Their debt isn't a social problem, because they never intend to pay it down while they remain in their home. Instead, they will die or downsize, their home will be sold, and the HELOC will be paid off.
The former group is getting screwed, and is going heavily into debt because of land speculation. The latter group is living it up, and reaping the windfall. Unlike young people, they always have the option to sell, and move to a low-cost of living area that has no jobs.
> Their debt isn't a social problem, because they never intend to pay it down
It's the bank's problem, then, isn't it? They're predictably going to default. Why is their bank willing to buy equity in their home? It'd be like buying equity in a company that has declared its intent to shut down.
> It boggles my mind that the average house in Vancouver or Toronto costs ~20 years of average wages (Assuming you don't eat, sleep under a bridge, and don't pay any taxes.)
If you're sleeping under a bridge, are you renting out the home you've bought? If so, won't that recoup your costs sooner?
When the bubble bursts, the banks probably won't need bailing out, so that won't trigger a recession like happened in 2008.
But a huge number of Canadians being underwater on their mortgage will make for a drastic decrease in consumer spending, which may trigger a recession...
Yes - if a billionaire borrower buys a $200,000 house with a mortgage, there is little repayment risk for both borrower and banks. The mortgage payments are unlikely to stress the borrower.
No - that risk can be distributed between bank and borrower. Bank provides 75% of the value of the house, so it takes more risk. However, it can reduce risk in variety of ways, including: 1) taking collateral, 2) taking a guarantee from borrower, 3) diversification, 4) off loading risk to 3rd parties.
And if there's a crisis large enough that solvency of CMHC might be questionable, they don't have to worry either because the bank of Canada will gladly buy their mortgages, passing the risk onto taxpayers.
Because of government cutbacks on public spending and erosion of the 'welfare' state.
Public policy and investment in housing for ordinary people while allowing the mega elite to extract as much wealth for themselves. The non-elite then use debt to maintain their standards of living.
Mortgage interest for commercial entities is tax deductible in Canada, just like any other business loan. It's only personal residential mortgages that are not deductible in Canada.
It seems to me that this difference favors landlords over owner-occupants when it comes to buying property [which does not seem to be beneficial public policy]. With interest rates as low as they are, this is maybe only a medium-sized problem, but when interest rates rise again, this is likely going to exacerbate the difficulty of people beginning their home ownership "ladder" because landlords can literally outbid them by the difference in tax policy.
Tax breaks can (to use US examples, not sure how many have Canadian analogies: the mortgage interest deduction, California's property tax assesemt increase limitations, the capital gains tax exclusion on home sales) serve as incentives to take on debt for real estate purchases.
I was born and raised in Canada. I, like many of my peers at the "top" Canadian universities, focused solely on recruiting to the "top" American companies that came to campus to recruit[1].
I would describe Canada as generally being tightly range bound. One of the most striking things about coming to the U.S. is the large class of what I would consider to be the working poor. People who are truly just doing enough to get by and are one mishap away from financial ruin. Of course, having lived in SF and NYC this is constantly juxtaposed with extreme, incomprehensible wealth that is equally striking.
In Canada, in my experience, the vast majority are still in the middle with few outliers in either direction. Earning potentials are significantly capped - even in areas like banking and tech - and social programs make it quite difficult for there to be the kind of working poor I observe daily here.
I've often thought to myself that I couldn't imagine what it would be like to make $50k in the United States (even living in a low CoL area). From health insurance, to private school costs (given the quality of many public schools), to college costs. It would seem an intense burden. Certainly if I had offers that paid between $50-100k in both the U.S. and Canada I would move back to Canada. I would feel I have no other choice.
With all that said, I make many multiples - especially after tax - of what I could ever have hoped to make in Canada. I have been inside institutions with the kind of institutional framework with no comparable in Canada (from a human capital and technological perspective). Opportunities have been afforded to me here that either do not exist or are analogous, but significantly inferior in Canada. The United States has given me a wonderful life and I'll always be grateful for the opportunity to be here.
I make no claim as to which economic system is better. I would just observe that Canada is a much easier place to live, but in my experience lacking in the kind of dynamism you see in the United States (that translates into personal opportunities, income, and fulfilment).
[1] Top is obviously somewhat subjective. McGill, U of T, UBC, and U of Waterloo would be the "top" schools. The "top" jobs are FANG or FANG-adjacent, investment banks or hedge funds (GS, JPM, Citadel, etc.), and consulting firms (McKinsey, BCG, Bain).
> I've often thought to myself that I couldn't imagine what it would be like to make $50k in the United States (even living in a low CoL area). From health insurance, to private school costs (given the quality of many public schools), to college costs. It would seem an intense burden. Certainly if I had offers that paid between $50-100k in both the U.S. and Canada I would move back to Canada. I would feel I have no other choice.
I wonder how much of this perception comes from the fact that people who have lived in both Canada and the U.S. probably lived in places like SF and NYC, and those American cities are particularly dysfunctional. And that dysfunctionality is particularly visible because of differences in housing patterns. (Toronto versus Chicago is a good example. The two cities are the same size, but Toronto's metro area has 6.5 million people, while Chicago's has almost 10 million. If housing patterns were similar, Chicago would have another 1.5-2 million middle class people living in the city, lessening the impression of gaping wealth inequality between the city's various neighborhoods.)
The fact is that Canada spends almost exactly the same percentage of GDP on social welfare as the U.S., and slightly less per student on K-12 education. It's hard to imagine that Canada really manages to get a dramatically different safety net for the same money. More likely to me is that U.S. urbanites have little experience with American families in suburban Georgia or Kansas--places where making $50,000 and getting employer-paid health insurance (like most middle class families get), and sending your kids to the perfectly good neighborhood school makes for a quite comfortable life.
> The fact is that Canada spends almost exactly the same percentage of GDP on social welfare as the U.S.
If by spending social welfare you mean transfering taxpayer dollars to big health corporation dividends, then yes, the US and Canada spend about the same amount of GDP on "social welfare".
I live in an area of New York State, near a tertiary city, where the median household income is ~$50,000. Parent's comment that to earn this would be an "intense burden" is borderline offensive. I agree with you that urban elite likely have little experience with American (or even Canadian) families living in these conditions. For perspective, such an income puts these families in the 90th percentile, globally.
Parent described how grateful they are to have the opportunities they do. They are obviously very privileged, they should be very grateful.
I have thought about this quite a bit and tried to word my initial post as a personal statement (not an objective fact of the inferiority of making $50k in Kansas as opposed to Quebec).
I entirely agree with your point that American families in Kansas, et al. seem reasonably content and the kind of fears that would lead me to look to Canada over the U.S. if I made $50-100k are perhaps entirely irrational.
My response though - again personal in nature, not objective in any sense - would be:
Canadians grew up in Canada with an imperfect healthcare system. Nevertheless, it's there and assessable whenever it is needed. There's no fear of random bills or imperfect coverage (there is a fear of waiting weeks or months, however, which is perhaps more important).
Canadian immigrants only understand the U.S. healthcare system in the abstract -- so losing your health insurance or having it and getting dinged with a large bill is a bit of a boogeyman (scary, but perhaps only because we don't fully understand how it all works in practice).
Likewise K-12 and college in Canada is a much simpler affair. I grew up in a city of 100,000. We had no private schools so everyone went to K-12 together. When it came time to go to university, my top-ranked school (in Canada) cost $7,000 a year and was quite easy to get into.
So for a middle-class Canadian family the notion of setting up your child to have the very best Canadian education available isn't an overly stressful affair. K-12 is public and college is reasonably affordable with reasonably high acceptance rates. Importantly: even if private K-12 is available, it's not overly difficult to get into McGill, et al. so why bother?
For a middle-class American family - because private K-12 is available and likely helps with getting into the best colleges - you feel somewhat compelled to send your child there (lest you do them a disservice). Then - again because elite colleges are available and better than privates - you feel compelled to help your child get into and pay for an elite, private education (even the top public options are quite pricey).
In reality what America provides is better alternatives. An issue I see with many colleagues with children is spending $10k a year on private K-12, but feeling like a bad parent because they can't afford the $30k option that has superior outcomes (a classic urban insecurity that is likely not entirely rational). In Canada there are few choices (or in health care only one choice) and while they are inferior to American comparables, they are much more widely assessable. You send your child to the public K-12, because that's just what's available. Your child has just one healthcare option. Your child can only pick from four "elite" universities and if she or he applies to them all, will likely get into one (at a reasonable cost).
I find the US colleges to be "clubs" with lots of alumni support. I haven't watch NFL in a while, but for some reason pros who have been in NFL for 10 years still say which college they went to. I think this motivates people to pay extremely high fees to get into the club.
Whereas in Canada, like you said, "if she or he applies to them all, will likely get into one". And in 10 years nobody cares where you went school. Oddly more of a meritocracy than in the US, which you wouldn't expect in a more socialist Canadian system.
On a provincial level, the NDP socialist political party has had success getting voted in. Recently they are usually not re-elected in after messing everything up, but socialism in Canada has strong roots: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialism_in_Canada.
This paradox of choice largely doesn't exist in the US either. The majority of people in both countries didn't graduate college. For almost everyone, the elite universities aren't even on the radar (much less the elite employers like FANG into which those universities feed). This upper middle class striverism is over-reported in the media, but is irrelevant to the vast majority of Americans.
My wife went to high school in rural Iowa. Everyone went to the local high school, and then the smart kids went to U of Iowa, the next tranche went to Iowa State, etc. Her parents were "rich" (her step-dad is a surgeon) but there wasn't much in the way to distinguish them from everyone else. Other “rich” families owned farms, a couple of stores in town, etc. She did FFA (Future Farmers of America) and worked her way through college babysitting. (Tuition at U of I is $8,500 today, about the same as University of Toronto or McGill.)
I should add, in Iowa under 10% of people are below the poverty line, about the same as Canada, infant mortality rate is about the same as Canada, the homelessness rate is 1/10 what it is in Canada, 94% of the population is covered by health insurance, etc. I just got back from Des Moines. Talk about a prosperous, broadly middle class society. The child poverty rate in Des Moines is 14% versus 25% for Toronto. There are no FANG jobs, but millennials with completely normal colleges-graduate jobs own houses. If you want to know why many Americans don’t view their country as a loaf-apocalyptic wasteland, it’s because they don’t live in New York or San Francisco.
I wouldn't disagree with any of this except to suggest my comment was narrowly tailored to parents who feel compelled to provide their children "the very best" education and opportunity set in the country (predicated on ranking and exclusivity). If you believe American parents who aim toward this have an undue paranoia about class and an unhealthy amount of insecurity, then I'm afraid we entirely agree.
However, the point was that in Canada, because the peaks are lower, getting "the very best" education is much more readily achievable by those in the middle than in the United States.
> If you want to know why many Americans don’t view their country as a loaf-apocalyptic wasteland, it’s because they don’t live in New York or San Francisco.
I certainly hope my post hasn't given this impression. I have a green card and am proudly in the pipeline to become an American citizen.
This is a wonderful, special country which has provided me immense opportunity that does not exist within Canada (the primary thrust of my original post).
The vast majority of NY is more like the cliches people spout here and elsewhere about Kansas than NYC. The capital district of NY has about a million people, and IT jobs paying $50-70K. Just as you say, "normal college graduates own houses". You can get a place here for the same inflation-adjusted price as 25 years ago.
I won’t claim to know what it’s like to be gay in Iowa, but as a non-white person myself I’d love to live in Iowa. Des Moines has roughly the same percentage of Hispanics and non-whites as Portland or Seattle. The income gap between Hispanic and non-Hispanic households is also narrower in Iowa than the national average.
Iowa City, home of the University of Iowa, has a large, active, prosperous gay population. Activism is outspoken. Churches have gay ministers. The Gay Pride parade every year is boisterous and hugely attended.
Not that there isn't gay-bashing, like so many places. But I'd guess there's 'safety in numbers' going on?
Anyway even back in the day, I had several gay classmates (but back then they weren't outspoken about it). These days, my son's classes had coming-out parties etc for classmates.
My daughter-in-law's parents are gay and outspoken about it. My cousin's daughter is married to a wonderful lady, and they've adopted 4 kids who are amazing additions to the clan. We have lunch once a month and catch up.
So some parts of Iowa, at any rate, are not wastelands of backwardness.
There's a really significant caveat on page 5, regarding the factors used to adjust for purchasing power:
> Using the PPPs from the OECD instead, between 25 and 32 per cent of Canadian households would be better off
than their American counterparts. The Appendix provides the full estimates using PPPs from the OECD.
Leaving that aside, Canada is broadly comparable to the US in terms of policy so we would expect it to have similar outcomes. Over the past few decades, Canada has been pushing a massive policy of economic liberalization: https://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/great-right-nor.... Their government spending as a percentage of GDP dropped from almost 50% in 1990 to under 40% (comparable to the US) in 2008. They've done a better job controlling the deficit than we have, so they have lower debt as a percentage of GDP. They've cut individual taxes to around U.S. levels, and have cut corporate taxes to below U.S. levels. Canada's social spending as a percentage of GDP is slightly less than the US's as of 2014: https://ftalphaville.ft.com/2014/11/27/2053392/welfare-spend.... Canada has also aggressively deregulated: Canada ranks #8 in the Heritage Foundation's economic freedom index, versus #12 for the US.
Canada, Australia, and the United States are more similar than they are different, both culturally and economically. Unsurprisingly, outcomes in those countries are also very similar.
Canada is tremendously better than the USA if you're young (18 to 30 years old).
I had the shittiest life in the USA, was born in Canada but parents moved to USA and when I was seven years old; parents were lower-middle class for context.
I've only managed to move back to Canada a few years ago and I wish I never would go to the USA ever again if I could live life over. Canada has free healthcare and I'm a transgender person; so that's awesome that people are taken care of medically. In USA I was denied healthcare by doctors based on their religious beliefs. I even suffered conversion therapy and multiple incidents of discrimination that would have easily ended with legal proceedings in my favour if it had occurred in Canada instead of the USA. The legal help for minorities in USA is a joke and they turn away people unless they feel like media will love the story.
Other benefits would be university cost in Canada is affordable compared to USA. In Canada tuition loans will not start collecting interest until after you have a degree and working (I believe). Also you can declare bankruptcy if you need to unlike in USA. Food here is way healthier than the USA. Social workers here care in helping people find jobs, get the resources they need and there is legal aid if you're jobless.
I...I can't believe people are downvoting stuff like this.
We're virtually in the same position - I am also transgender, and would have to pay hundreds of dollars for HRT if I was down there, alone.
There are unfortunately a lot more biased, seemingly pious individuals here, who are just downvoting these kinds of comments without even providing proper criticism.
That's what 'patriotism' gives you. Amurrrica!
I've even had folks directly misquote me and put words in my mouth to argue with me. I've never even seen that on HN.
I can only speculate why people are downvoting, but I suspect it's because sysbin's comment seems to suggest a particular state of mind:
- Ignorance of the First Amendment
- Extreme sense of entitlement and expectation that others should do as he/she expects regardless of how the other person feels about it
Phrasing it as "I was surprised to find that doctors in the US can refuse treatment to transgenders based on their religious beliefs" would probably have led to far fewer downvotes.
Hypocrisy is what you're preaching right here. People downvoting me for expressing (what "they" consider a first amendment right) by voicing my opinion that Canada has it better for not restricting healthcare based on religious ideology. That's hypocrisy against my USA and Canadian right.
People are scum when they use religion as an excuse to allow someone's health to be worse than if religion didn't exist to result in the maltreatment compared to a person with an illness they find tolerable by their beliefs for following treatment protocol accepted in the medical community.
I can voice that opinion in Canada or in the USA. Canada has it better for trans people. I'm sure "scum" in USA will not care about that because they're a bunch of narcissists.
I'm doubtful any of the downvotes are coming from people that have experienced what's offered for being in situations of misfortune in life. I sometimes think I have ptsd from the way everyone in the USA is quick to assume the person suffering is responsible for their own suffering; accusing when they've never experienced anything of the sort by how their life happened to play out. Makes seeking help harder than when I first attempted in the USA. I sometimes wonder if the USA adopted the blame victim psych by assuming that would be a solution of saving human & social resources.
I think you might be missing some parts of the Canadian story that make it seem more idyllic to you based on your situation. I am not disagreeing with anything you are staying about the US BUT Canada is not necessarily some liberal forward thinking Utopia for all, there are a lot of people who fall through (or get crushed by) the cracks, mainly the first nations people. Their story and struggle in Canada is brutal.
My situation isn't happy. I would bet money you've never been denied healthcare because of religious ideology or suffered conversion therapy and from reading your response.
I'm visually transgender because of the abuse experienced in the USA. I find out after moving to Canada with a degree, that Starbucks will cover all surgeries a transgender person needs and only for USA employees. That's awesome but after living in the USA, I would still stick it out here in Canada and even if I end up committing suicide in the following months.
Sure, the first nations people have had awful experiences and it's comparable to African Americans in the USA. The thing is that the first nations people still can get the resources and benefits here in Canada that I listed; unlike what's in the USA.
A Canadian friend of mine lives in B.C. and told me that, "80% of Canadians live within x miles of the U.S. border.... We call it 'huddled up to the stove'".
it's within 200 miles. Also a different but fun fact - 80% of the canadian population lives in one straight line between Quebec City and Windsor Ontario (adjacent to Detroit), we call that l'axe Quebec-Windsor: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quebec_City–Windsor_Corridor
And then you realize that the population of Canada is 10% of US. Canada should be compared to the Nordic countries vs. US in terms of quality of life etc.
I have never understood why people assume that just because the US is bigger than other OECD countries that it can't have the same levels of happiness, or the same quality/cost of healthcare and education etc.
Why do you think the US should aim lower simply because it has more people?
Why don't you think per-capita comparisons are valid?
If anything, the US should be better than smaller OECD countries because it gets a huge benefit from scale.
It feels like you're simply giving up "because we're bigger" on even trying to just equal other OECD countries.
It's not a policy issue, just a statistical artifact.
From variance alone you'd expect the US to be middle of the pack, and smaller countries to make up the extremes on any metric you can make up. Particularly if, as in the case of the OECD, you're essentially cherry-picking high performing, smaller countries.
You can't usefully compare ratios where the denominators differ that wildly.
If you want to measure the difference between Canada, nordic countries, the US, etc., you need to cluster them into reasonably-chosen and mostly uniformly-sized chunks, collect your metric on each chunk, and compare the distribution of chunks across systems of government/countries/etc. This would actually result in a statistically valid comparison.
That's a lot more work and as far as I know nobody ever does it.
Yes. It's the "greatest country to ever have existed" but whenever it's behind in something it's impossible to fix that because it's too big, too diverse or something else.
Because, it's harder to be happy when you consider your money is being spent for 'those people' in Alabama, who are really nothing like you, than it is for you to be upset that your poor neighbor -- who you see everyday -- is benefiting from your taxes.
The United States is a conglomeration of sovereign entities, the states, and thus you see exactly the kind of disarray as you see in other supra-sovereign entities, such as the EU. While many member countries are certainly quite harmonious, with high standards of living, the quality among countries is quite striking, as is the general distaste whenever someone suggests wealth transfers between them.
Canada is also a federation, but, there's so few Canadians, and most of them have a common enemy -- the Quebecois.
Effective policy needs to reflect local conditions, including geographic, economic, cultural, and demographic factors, which vary enormously when the population spans 5000 kilometers as is the case in the US. As a consequence, there is a long history of national policy adversely impacting or being ineffective in some large region of the US because the "one-size-fits-all" policy was poorly suited to local conditions. The US has struggled with this its entire history. Individual States have geography and populations that are more in line with European countries, hence why most policy is decided there.
You see this even with relatively boring policy, like setting a national speed limit for driving.
This does not imply that local policy is always effective in the US, the reality is that it varies widely depending on where you live in the US and must also operate within certain practical and legal constraints. There are also many perverse interactions between national policy and state policy.
One reason is that quality of life improvements often manifest as some form of technological infrastructure (housing, medicine, goods, roads, clean pipes, etc.).
Population matters less than investment per capital per unit area (because people take up real space).
Canada and Australia are the only two countries with the population of over 20 million that are ranked higher than the USA in the OECD Better Life Index[1]. Therefore, it's safe to assume that the size of the country makes a huge difference in such rankings.
And location. Canada has no border with the developing world, and neither does Australia. If Canada was located next to Panama, things would probably look different.
The US is the target country for most migrants, they don't continue on through to Canada in large numbers. If they did, most would likely get deported, Canada's immigration is highly selective.
It's again not quite that simple. Canada's asylum acceptance rate is higher than the US. However, due to a bilateral policy change in I think 2009 asylum seekers could no longer pass overland through the US and apply in Canada. This reduced the asylum seeker rates from south/central America and Mexico a fair bit to Canada as they were forced to apply in US.
Outside of just asylum seekers, although successful immigration rates are much higher in the US than Canada (about 4x), per capita Canada is much higher (as there is a 10x population difference).
> Canada's asylum acceptance rate is higher than the US.
Canada decides who comes to Canada to apply though (via resettlement programs where the seekers have been referred by a third party like UNHCR), it's generally not that people just walk across the border as they do in Europe or the US. If you can choose, for example, to resettle a bunch of academics and their families from Afghanistan, you are in a very different situation vs having the average Afghan population show up at the border which includes a large amount that are functionally illiterate.
This isn't a critique of Canada's selective policy, it's just a very different situation, much like somebody who lives in a rich part of town will not have to deal with the same issues as somebody who lives in an area with high poverty even though they both go to work, buy groceries, take showers and talk to neighbors.
Completely agree with this, having lived for time in both countries.
While we might be a percentage of the overall US population, we are fortunate to have access to most of the same things as the USA, just with a few extra nice things like health care.
Actually, in principle larger means more markets and labor supply and more clout on the world markets. Furthermore the US has more usable land, and Canada's vast distances with low populations increases their expenses vs the US.
And indeed the US does have a higher per capita GDP. But because it's concentrated in so few hands, most Canadians are better off than most Americans.
As someone else in the thread has already pointed out, which one do you think will be less stressful and noticeably easier to manage - deciding what to do for dinner for a group of 3 people vs. a group of 30 people? It is much easier to converge on a decision that will leave everyone satisfied when you have 3 people. While with 30 people, it is almost guaranteed that there will be a few people who would be left unsatisfied, a few satisfied, while the remainder will just end up being "ok" with the compromise.
Not really, as it depends on distribution as well.
They actually aren't that different (distribution-wise) in many places, although obviously Canada has a lot more parts where people are really spread out. Because most of Canada's population lives in the southern 10% or less, there are many regions where density of infrastructure & people looks kinda-sorta-the same. Obviously there are exceptions, and only one large city, etc.
Why should population size be important? I know tiny sample sizes can produce curious results by luck, but I don’t buy that applying to multi-million populations. It seems to me that the difference is worth understanding.
I think the standard explanation is that a huge country like the US lacks the social cohesion necessary to pay higher tax rates in exchange for social programs that benefit everyone. Like, I believe Sweden's population is about 10 million- much easier to have the social 'glue' for 'let's all agree to pay very high tax rates, and we'll all get collective social programs with it!' Versus the US at over 300 million people, you don't feel as connected to the other folks who would presumably be benefiting, and it's tougher to get a 'we're all in this together' mentality. Think of the difference in social cohesion between a small town and a huge city.
Like, I'm an American and I've literally never even been to most red states, never been to Texas, don't really know anyone from any of those areas of the country, etc. I don't feel a lot of connection with them.
Then there's, frankly, the racial angle. Most of the Nordic countries have traditionally been pretty ethnically homogeneous, which helps the social cohesion/let's all chip in for government programs together mentality. The US is of course not, and racial fears about 'those people' getting unearned benefits is a HUGE part of the American story.
Basically, the US is the most right-wing of the developed countries, and we tend to have bell-shaped unequal systems where a small % live very well and a larger % are below European standards. Healthcare is like the best example of this.
I've also heard a little talk that our political system is more amenable to lobbying by corporations than a parliamentary system, but I don't know enough about that argument to really advance it
> Like, I believe Sweden's population is about 10 million- much easier to have the social 'glue'
This specifically is what I am not understanding. Why is 10 million supposed to be easier?
10 million is about double the size of the metropolitan area I’m currently in, and roughly a hundred times the size of the last city I worked in. In both cases the population is much too large to be a single community.
> 10 million is about double the size of the metropolitan area
But you can agree that you understand and feel connected to the issues of people in your metropolitan area more than those of people in another state? Or in a rural town?
Assembling funds to build a bridge/tunnel/rail in your metro feels more tangible than livestock subsidies in another state?
> Assembling funds to build a bridge/tunnel/rail in your metro feels more tangible than livestock subsidies in another state?
It only feels more tangible if I personally will use it. In the case of things such as “should Berlin build a new tunnel?” (something I suspect I will never use), the trouble is the more effort I put into understanding such a possibility, the less it matters to me where it is. If I don’t use it, it doesn’t matter unless I make myself think about it, and if I make myself think about it it doesn’t matter if it’s Berlin or Beijing.
Of course, I might be unusual. I did move country after visiting several to decide which was a good choice, which implies a certain range of attitudes about the world. I regard governments the way most people regard smartphone brands.
Even if you don't personally use it, a tunnel in your city will affect the lives of the people you know. It will affect the traffic patterns of you and your friends and family and coworkers. The tunnel as an idea will enter the discourse of your circles. Farm subsidies are far more abstract. The real effects of those are barely felt by urbanites, let alone the people in your specific city.
> The tunnel as an idea will enter the discourse of your circles. Farm subsidies are far more abstract.
My friends are mostly the other way around. Local road infrastructure has never been discussed, while Brexit, Bolsonaro, and the Hong Kong riots all are. It is fair to say that we don’t discuss farm subsidies (but then, they are also a very small fraction of our total taxation).
I don't understand this argument. What does the population of the country have to do with anything? Shouldn't a country with a larger population have more power to make competitive advantages, and larger economies of scale, and therefore have an easier time?
More people to manage, more local governments with more layers of hierarchies and more bureaucracy overall and I've never heard of bureaucracies scaling well
First of all, their point doesn't depend on Switzerland being in bad shape or not. They're not saying a country's situation solely depends on this, but that it's a factor. There are lots of other factors at play in Switzerland and most any other country.
Second, there usually is another layer in most of the US (and Canada, for that matter) which doesn't exist in Switzerland: the county. I think that's more likely to cause inefficiencies than federalism alone.
Also, I'm not actually sure Switzerland has more bureaucracy. It mostly seems comparable in my experience having lived in both countries. Are there any metrics on this?
If everyone agrees with each other, then yeah, a large population is better. But when you've got a ton of people it's harder to find a solution that everyone likes. It's like the difference between two people trying to decide where to get lunch, and 30 people trying to decide. It also doesn't help that the West and East coast are culturally different, even among people of the same political party.
Isn't it more like 30 people vs 300 people? The proportions of differing opinions are are still the same in that case.
Your East vs West coast comment also confused me. I'd argue Canada has the same (or more) regional differences in politics.
There's the East Region (Ontario + Maritimes), Quebec (featuring a different language, heritage, culture and legal system), The Central region, and the West Coast.
Oh, and of course First Nations throughout (which of course the US has as well).
I wonder if there's some A/B testing or tailored headlines going on here, because the headline I'm seeing when I click the link is "Most Canadians Are Now Better Off Than Most Americans".
I wonder how much this has to do to with immigration and immigration policy. The US and Canada have both been very open to migrants since the at least the 80s (current US administration exempted), but Canada has aggressively pursued attracting high skill foreign born workers while the US has not. I know US foreign born average earnings are substantially below native born earnings, but I couldn't quickly find similar statistics for Canada
The headline is a very ambiguous statement. It seems to be consistent with the proposition that the top 51% of Canadians are better off than the bottom 51% of Americans, which would be an exceedingly small difference.
On the other hand, if the top 80% of Canadians were better off than the bottom 80% of Americans, that's a huge difference, but kind of implausible.
Cars in the US are far cheaper than in Canada. One of my coworkers in the Montreal office came to US to get a used car. Even my German friend who is working here on a contract, could not believe how inexpensive a BMW was here.
Also every American who dies of cancer or other major medical condition will have his or her lifetime savings wiped out by medical bills. So measure average net income minus expenses at time of death and I’d be surprised if we beat Bangladesh. They probably have a higher gross national happiness in life as well.
California and Vancouver has more homelessness because you can survive in the streets with the weather there far easier than Toronto.
It also has a network effect, their friends are out there so they want to go. More homeless people the more community they have and less hassle from the police. Same with drug users, the more junkies around the more drug dealers there will be to serve them. Most of those westcoast homeless areas turn into open drug markets which you wouldn't find in Toronto. A lot of the opioid stuff is coming from Asia so it's possible being closer to the west coast shipping ports attracts more users.
The biggest problem is certainly drug use. I've never been there, but I've heard horror stories, and exchange horror stories from California.
My other points, especially health care, still stand - and Chicago is comparable, weather-wise, to Toronto, and still contained far more visible homelessness, and things like needles on the sidewalk, that I just rarely, rarely see here.
Isn't SF the most liberal city in the US but has one of the worst homeless problems in the US?
I see needles all the time living downtown in Toronto. Especially when I lived near Parliament and Queen there were tons everywhere. Even now near Cityplace people constantly complain about needles on the FB group.
The difference with better . weather is that you see the homelessness a lot more in urban areas. But you're right the weather is not a good indicator it seems, although far more west coast cities seem to be having a problem with it: https://blogs-images.forbes.com/niallmccarthy/files/2018/12/... Numbers alone is probably a poor metric for it being a 'problem', since Manhattan was famously 'cleaned up'.
> Half of all people experiencing homelessness are in one of five states - California (129,972 people), New York (91,897), Florida (31,030), Texas (25,310) and Washington (22,304).
Four out of five of those states also rank as the most 4 most populated states in the union so there is some unwanted skewing going on there; a better metric would probably be per capita. The maps in the 2018 AHAR[0] are done that way for an easy comparison.
> I'm mentioning health care, gun violence, shoddy leadership, and homelessness as practical reasons I can see the USA just not even being comparable in terms of quality-of-life - these are facts that can easily be backed up by data I'd be happy to provide.
1. Health Care - Anecdotally, I've known people who moved down to the US from Canada because they could no longer receive care (or timely care). Of course, these specific individuals were elderly, but take from that what you will. Also, I've read that the U.S. pours more money than any other country into medical research (though I could be wrong about that).
2. Gun Violence - As always, the picture painted of the U.S. as being some sort of warzone where you are constantly afraid of being shot is just...false. The vast majority of the U.S. has the homocide rate of Switzerland (a country with many guns and low crime). There are generally just a few pockets of insane levels of violence related to the drug trade. As for suicide, it is an issue, but there are other first world countries that have few guns but comparable levels (e.g. South Korea) that your source fails to mention.
3. Homelessness is an issue, and I honestly don't know what the reason for the difference is between Toronto and Chicago. For California, climate may be a factor, but it definitely seems to have become worse in recent years.
I agree with most of your points, I live in Toronto as well, but in regards to homelessness here I wonder how much of that has to do with climate - warmer cities must attract larger homeless populations I would guess.
Yeah, it's the health care, gun violence, poor leadership, and ICE that really throw me off. It actually scares me. To think of all those poor families who are being treated worse than animals from ICE alone - well, let's just say I try not to think about it, and just be grateful I'm in a country that sees that as what it is - abhorrent.
I didn't downvote you, but I see no data, only anecdotes, poor forms of argumentation ("most of us ..."), and outright mistruths (your health care is in no way, shape, or form "free") ... and HN tends to downvote this sort of content.
Furthermore, I actually had to search, you're putting words in my mouth and misquoting me, there - I never, ever, said, anything along the lines 'in no way, shape or form is it free'. I'm aware of insurance, I lived there, I'm not dumb, and I don't appreciate people misquoting me, or putting words in my mouth, thanks.
I lived there, I would know...that's not something I think needs backed up by data...I'd be happy to provide it.
Also, how is something like ICE an 'anecdote'?
ICE is one of the biggest crimes against humanity that is still ongoing. I hear horror stories every other day.
> ICE is one of the biggest crimes against humanity that is still ongoing.
It's hard to take you seriously when you say stuff like this. Kids in cages is bad but pick up a history book and you will find much much much worse. I can point to number events going on right now or recent memory that are worse.
> I hear horror stories every other day.
No, you don't. Stop being Miss Hyperbole and people will take you seriously.
Also, Health Care is NEVER free since you pay for it one way or another.
> Also, Health Care is NEVER free since you pay for it one way or another
That's kind of nit-picky. Government services that aren't paid for by user fees at the time of service but rather out of some kind of general tax whose rate you pay doesn't depend on whether you use the service or not are often referred to as "free" in normal conversation.
For example, most people would consider GPS a free service provided by the government, but obviously there are costs to provide it. Those costs are paid out of general US tax revenue.
When people talk of "free" healthcare, they almost always mean free in that sense.
> Also, Health Care is NEVER free since you pay for it one way or another.
TANSTAAFL.
Also, it is a finite resource, and like all finite resources must be rationed in some manner. I'm saying I like how the U.S. health care system works, but I also don't think the only alternative is to have it government run.
> your health care is in no way, shape, or form "free"
Are you nitpicking over the definition of the word "free" because it's taxpayer-funded? You should know that "free healthcare" is shorthand for "you are unlikely to be bankrupted by, or forced to do without, necessary treatment because your insurance is not up to snuff."
No one is nitpicking, you are just seriously incorrect. Free means to not pay for something. Saying that Health Care is free is to say that the user of Health Care does not have to pay for its cost. Health Care is never free, no matter the system in which it is provided.
Your definition of free is correct, so it's fair to briefly point out that health care is not actually free in Canada. On the other hand, everybody knows that, including the person using the word "free". So over-focusing on the word is a form of nitpicking IMHO.
People often use the word "free" to mean - I can use this service without even thinking about money.
As everyone on HN will tell you... Google and Facebook's services are not free (you're just paying in a different way) but they're commonly described as "free" services.
Colloquialisms exist. If you insist on assuming that everyone intends only the strict dictionary definitions of words, you're going to (continue to) get in silly misunderstandings.
When people say "free health care," they don't mean literally free, they mean you won't receive a bill after treatment. Maybe you don't like that usage. I don't like it when people use "literally" to mean "a whole lot." The language doesn't care what either of us likes.
I lived most of my life in Toronto and now live in San Francisco. I can't corroborate your observation that "people are generally a lot happier" in Toronto.
I agree homelessness is dramatically less in Toronto.
From my personal experience I have nothing but happy memories from my visits to Toronto. Yes, the winters can be brutal but so is the case with most of the New York state. Toronto seems more diverse, clean and in general, a happy place. <3
It's impossible to take his racist, ass-backwards attitude seriously.
He is the butt of every political joke outside of the states. If you want to individually suss me out for saying that, go ahead - but all you'd need to do is Google him to see how lambasted he's been.
Trump has made a laughing stock of American politics, and it's a damn shame.
EDIT: Aha, wow, flagged. I think the phrase goes: 'Don't shoot the messenger'. Did you guys want stats on how pathetic Trump is as well? I think the Simpsons nailed that one years before he went into office.
Please stop posting political and nationalistic flamebait to HN. It's not what this site is for, we ban accounts that do it, and we've had to ask you before.
Complaints about getting downvoted and flagged are also against the guidelines; please stop doing that as well.
> Most of us up here are simply grateful not to be in the USA - since Trump, ICE, et cetera - not to mention free health care, here, which Trump made every effort to destroy.
Contrast Trump with the Ford dynasty, and the PPC. Populism is sharply rising. I work in a riding where a candidate (LLTT) ran on an explicitly anti-trans, anti-immigration platform and rallies with open white supremacists. It's Trump's brand of hatred with a sheen of professionalism that Trump will never manage. That should scare you.
Contrast ICE with the genocide of first nations, where indigenous women are still being sterilized against their will.
Yes we have health care, but the mental health care in this country is almost nonexistent. And when you enter that system while trans, good fucking luck, sister. I know.
Having lived in both countries. Both have an immense amount of pride. But Canadians, by and large, are too "polite" to speak out. Except for the proto-nazis, I guess
Canada's immigration rate (of legal immigrants) is higher than the US'. We take in nearly twice as many immigrants as the US, relative to our population.
Canada is known for being very accepting of middle class and educated or skilled immigrants. Poor immigrants (which is what the original comment was specifying) not so much, and Canada's border enforcement is more effective than that of the US.
Sounds like a failure of the US immigration system if new immigrants are unable to get decent jobs, even while the US accepts half as many immigrants per capita. Also interesting is the current political discourse in the US, where prominent voices in the media want to take in more currently rejected and undocumented migrants while the US is losing ground to other developed countries for income deciles 1-6.
Yes, but much of Canada's immigration is points based - i.e. you get well educated, employable people. The vast majority of US immigration is family based where your elderly grandmother from back home can come and live in the US.
Family sponsorships are a thing here... A permanent resident of Canada can sponsor any immediate family member (except siblings over a certain age) and grandparents.
[1]https://www.cnbc.com/2017/11/24/canadas-household-debt-level...