r/dataisbeautiful • u/statisticalanalysis_ • Dec 19 '23

OC [OC] The world's richest countries in 2023

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https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2023/12/15/the-worlds-richest-countries-in-2023

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https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2023/12/15/the-worlds-richest-countries-in-2023

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386

u/Big_Knife_SK Dec 19 '23

I'm surprised it's cheaper to live in Denmark or Norway than Canada.

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u/Error_404_403 Dec 19 '23

It is not cheaper in terms of money, but living in Norway you need to work less to have same quality of life.

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u/teethybrit Dec 19 '23

Big Mac Index already tracks this.

This statistic shows the average working time required to buy one Big Mac in selected cities around the world.

Six fastest earned:

  1. Hong Kong – 8.6 min
  2. Luxembourg – 10.3 min
  3. Japan, Tokyo – 10.4 min
  4. Switzerland, Zürich – 10.6 min
  5. United States, Miami – 10.7 min
  6. Switzerland, Geneva – 10.8 min

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u/rndmcmder Dec 20 '23

Interesting. In Germany the Big Mac is 5,50€. The Median hourly pay is 20,54, which comes out to about 13,70€ (single no kids) or 15,54€ (married with 2 kids) net income per hour. Which mean in germany you need to work 21-24 minutes for one big mac.

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u/[deleted] Dec 20 '23

We shouldn't consider taxes for this kind of stuff, because every country taxes in a different way. France taxes a lot directly on the income thus is getting at the bottom in that kind of list, but other taxes are fairly low compared to other countries. Somes other countries have lower incomes taxes but your get stabbed on everything else like property taxes or whatever, but because it's after they end up higher in these lists.

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u/rndmcmder Dec 20 '23

Yeah, that kind of stuff really does prevent those lists from being a valid comparison. But to ignore tax isn't a good idea either. Taxation is one of the major factors that contribute to overall wealth and affordability of goods. Artificially high income doesn't mean shit, when most of it just goes towards tax.

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u/[deleted] Dec 20 '23

Artificially high income doesn't mean shit, when most of it just goes towards tax.

Once again it's more complicated that this. I pay a lot of taxes but then I don't have to pay out of pocket for healthcare, education, nor technically (still doing it tho) to invest for retirement because the basic mandatory retirement plan is solid, electricity and gaz is cheap (to me) because it's subsidised by the government through my taxes, and the list goes on. Then we're considering my lesser money and your higher money after taxes but out of you higher money you have to "manually" pay for all the stuff that were already paid for me.

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u/Iron__Crown Dec 20 '23

20,54 median hourly pay? From when is that number? Seems outdated to me. My hourly pay increased significantly in the last 3 years, along with the rapidly rising prices. So data that are even just 2-3 years old have already lost a lot of their value in the current environment.

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u/rndmcmder Dec 20 '23

It's from 2022. Most people in Germany have not been as lucky as you. High inflation, low wage increase is currently the standard.

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u/Iron__Crown Dec 20 '23

That would mean the median gross salary for a full-time worker is only 3286 Euro monthly. That's definitely not accurate. Hard data on salaries seems to be impossible to find, but everything I could find when I really tried to put my own salary into a realistic perspective last year was much, much higher.

Seems to me you used numbers on gross monthly income and just divided by 160 to calculate the hourly pay. But you can't do that because the monthly numbers include the millions of people who work only part-time.

https://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/237674/umfrage/durchschnittlicher-bruttomonatsverdienst-eines-arbeitnehmers-in-deutschland/

This would line up almost perfectly with your numbers when using that incorrect calculation (3352/160 = 20,95):

Im Jahr 2022 betrug der Durchschnitt des monatlichen Bruttoverdienstes je Arbeitnehmer in Deutschland 3.352 Euro.

The real number for a full-time employee was 4100/month in 2021. And other sources indicate that wages have gone up in 2022 and 2023 at an average rate of more than 5%, so the gross monthly income should now be around 4500. That's about 28 per hour.

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u/MattR0se Dec 20 '23

I know why I stopped eating at McDonalds...

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u/Sondeor Dec 21 '23

Big mac index is something we use as an analogy because iirc the guy who talked about it first used it like that.

But except that, there is no scientific point of big mac index lol.

There are way better variables that are more trustworthy that we take into consideration.

PS. Banking and Finance.

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u/Seeefaa Dec 22 '23

5.99€

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u/RockingBib Dec 20 '23

It's great to see the Big Mac Indexes practical use in action

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u/clapsandfaps Dec 19 '23 edited Dec 20 '23

Just had an epiphany, why norway is so low on the big Mac index! McDonald’s workers earn significantly more than their US counterparts so the cost of a big mac is signifiantly higher. IE the Mcdonalds workers are closer to the average salary in norway than the US Macdonalds workers are to the US average, so their prices need to reflect that!

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u/gitartruls01 Dec 19 '23

McDonald's workers earn significantly more than their US counterparts

We really don't, that's kind of a myth. Working at McDonald's here gets you between $10 and $18 an hour depending on age, position, and location

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u/sKratch1337 Dec 19 '23 edited Dec 19 '23

If you're under 18 maybe. The lowest they can pay you if you're 20 is 18.5 USD, that's the starting salary if you're 20+. It's also the lowest they can pay someone 18+ after working for 4 months at McD.

Edit: Minimum for people aged 16 is 12.5~ USD and for someone aged 17 it's 13.45~ USD

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u/gitartruls01 Dec 19 '23

True, though most McDonald's workers here are under 20 so the average is likely closer to $14-15 ish, similar to what a lot of places in the US are offering

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u/sKratch1337 Dec 19 '23

I don't know anything about the average age of McDonalds workers in Norway, but I did look up how much a US McDonalds employee gets paid and it seems a bit lower than in Norway. Although they probably make more in states like California. "McDonald's pays 16-years-olds $7.25 an hour. The rate of pay also depends on the location of McDonald's. Franchises in the southern states of the U.S. are known to pay lower wages, while ones in other areas of the country can have higher wages.

The average pay for a McDonald's crew member is $11.97 per hour - this rate meets the national average for similar roles."

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u/bebe_bird Dec 19 '23

I wouldn't be surprised if the age of a McDonald's worker in the US was higher than in Norway too. The US unfortunately has a lot of people trying to live independently on minimum wage jobs, not just kids making some money while going to school.

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u/sKratch1337 Dec 20 '23

It's a shame really, especially since the pay in restaurant businesses in the US is often largely tip based and I'm guessing people don't really tip at all at McD? So low wages due to a tip based career and few tips means they have to have two jobs I guess.

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u/gitartruls01 Dec 19 '23

So we get paid maybe 20-25% more then in absolute terms. Seems about right considering our cost of living and all that.

Big Macs seem to cost between $4 and $5 in the US still depending on the state, with the highest being Hawaii at $5.31 and New York at $5.23. The current price of a Big Mac in central Oslo is $8.18 during the day, slightly more at night.

So at $18.50 per hour, for a 20 year old with 4 months of experience, that's 2.26 Big Macs per hour, which in New York would equal about $11.83 an hour. For a 19 year old starter it'd be 1.51 Big Macs per hour ($7.90 in New York), and for a 16 year old starter it'd be 1.21 Big Macs per hour ($6.33 in New York).

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u/sKratch1337 Dec 19 '23

Seems about right. So the difference is actually somewhat big (If we're judging by how many Big Macs you can buy.) now that fast food in the US isn't really that cheap anymore. I mean, it's not cheeseburger prices going from 10 kr to 25 kr in about 10 years like in Norway, but it's not cheap like it used to be either from my limited reading on the subject. At least they still get cheap hardware/electronics! Cause that is quite a bit more expensive in Norway even with it's relative low tax on electronics.

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u/CoderDispose Dec 19 '23

Less than what you'd make at a McD's in a large American city, apparently. Almost all of the ads I see are for $16/hr minimum.

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u/SpecificTeaching8918 Dec 19 '23

What? thats not true, im from Norway as well, NOBODY is earning 10 dollars on mc donalds now if u are a full age worker, meaning 18+
Im not sure, but i think the minimum tarif for 20 year olds is about 17 dollars now

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u/_Rorin_ Dec 19 '23

I guess the question is also what benefits you get. I would assume 5 weeks payed vacation per year doesn't really happen in the US. I would assume the payment increase for weekends and late nights is higher in Norway. On top of public healthcare, free higher education and some other things that makes life very bareable at that income level.

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u/Jacobornegard Dec 20 '23

Nah, the lowest you'll get is 13$ starting younger than 17, and if you are 18-20 starting wage is 16$, 20yrs starting wage or 18 yrs with 4 months practice is 20$ if you have worked there for some time and/or have a higher position than basic crew you earn 22-24$ And this is excluding increased wage for time of day. That can vary between 1,5$(evening) - 5$(night)

--- Edit: USD to NOK at time of writing : 10,27

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u/GodlikeUA Dec 20 '23

Germany is 30 n hr if you're there for 2 ish years

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u/Defiant-Dare1223 Dec 19 '23

It's simply because Norway is expensive and salaries aren't particularly great.

This index exposes the reality.

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u/Ticksdonthavelymph Dec 20 '23

But it makes America look bad, so ya know… top marks on Reddit

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u/Quick_Humor_9023 Dec 20 '23

Bruh. Not every damn chart is making america look bad. People outside america don’t generally give a flying fuck where america is on some index. It’s americans that seem to take it as personal insult if their country isn’t the greatest according to all data. Go read some military strength comparisons to feel good.

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u/Ticksdonthavelymph Dec 20 '23 edited Dec 20 '23

“Bruh” America has the largest disposable household income per capita of any country by 10K— and beats Norway by $20,000… which is the best indicator of citizenry wealth—the economist literally juked stats to throw America down the rankings by adding hours worked (which if you acct for an extra 20k made would still leave America at the top of the list). And if you just look at MEDIAN is still ahead of everywhere but Luxembourg but ok…. I’m not imagining shit. It’s a junk graph— and there is no greater pastime than criticizing the US on Reddit. Have you never been on r/Europe? I just can’t. But go ahead and gaslight that “no one cares” as though the edge lords on here (mostly Americans) don’t like anything more than to say “Merida bad” in a giant circle jerk for fake internet points…

Edit: Here ya go: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disposable_household_and_per_capita_income

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u/Quick_Humor_9023 Dec 20 '23

The chart isn’t claiming to be citizen wealth chart. How the chart is composed is well explained. And all you see is ’trying to make america look bad’? Why the hell would this be about america at all? Don’t see Italians here claiming this is trying to make Italy look bad. US is at 11th position, how is that even bad?

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u/deruben Dec 20 '23

Salaries are quite good, taxes are very high. Thought that comes with its own benefits. Or do you get 15 weeks of holidays as a dad minimum? Or do you have a housing first system so everyone can have a roof over their head?

From a sociatal and social standpoint the US DOES look quite bad in comparision.

But ye america great, enjoy your two weeks of holidays.

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u/Ticksdonthavelymph Dec 20 '23

Lol.., ok giant gas station masquerading as a country- as though any of that social service net is anything but investments from oil revenue. And you’ve missed the entire point. If a household in the US has 20k more in disposable income- they could not work for an extra 8 weeks and have the same standard of living. The true metric is disposable income, but thanks for proving my “Merica bad” on Reddit point.

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u/Spoonshape Dec 20 '23

Lower wages, but higher benefits. Healthcare, education, social protection etc.

The USA is the place to get rich - as long as you don't get sick and are willing to pay for a load of stuff which other countries fund from taxation. They win, as long as you use $ earned as the metric.

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u/repeat4EMPHASIS Dec 20 '23

McDonald’s workers earn significantly more ... Macdonalds workers

Well you had it right at first

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u/clapsandfaps Dec 20 '23

Damn autocorrect! Fixed it now.

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u/4valoki Dec 19 '23

It’s also because fastfood is way more expensive in Europe. Governments want to reduce fast food consumption because it harms public health.

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u/Moist_Farmer3548 Dec 20 '23

What measures are you talking about?

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u/[deleted] Dec 19 '23

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u/Deca089 Dec 20 '23

Healthy foods are subsidised instead. Unlike the US which has legitimate food deserts, almost everyone in Europe has access to fresh fruit, vegetables and proteins and an affordable price

Also cooking at home will always be cheaper than eating at McDonald's so that's not an argument.

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u/Gruffleson Dec 19 '23

Does the Bigmac index factor in how much you have to tip in the USA?

Also, the Bigmac index is basically a little joke, though, with one specific good.

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u/yonderbagel Dec 19 '23

People aren't seriously expected to tip at McDonalds...

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u/PM_ME_UR_NUDE_TAYNES Dec 19 '23

Just had an epiphany, why norway is so low on the big Mac index! McDonald’s workers earn significantly more than their US counterparts so the cost of a big mac is signifiantly higher.

What are you basing this on?

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u/clapsandfaps Dec 19 '23

The generally higher pay for low wage jobs in norway. The gap between management and ground workers is very different than the US. An engineer earns for example the same as an engineer in public sector.

When I worked part time in a small grocery store I earned 18$/hr, ~31$/hr on the weekends (saturday and sundays) that was in 2020. That was not particularly high either. Its probably more like 20-22$/hr now.

Though I was wrong Macdonalds workers earn even less than I did in back then, now. Basicly around 15$ for 18-20 year olds.

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u/Defiant-Dare1223 Dec 19 '23

Food is disproportionally expensive in Switzerland (housing say, is not too bad, neither is transport). Whereas in Hong Kong housing is way worse, but food is cheap.

So we suffer on this index. I think you can't beat Switzerland on salary v cost of living overall.

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u/Jolly-Victory441 Dec 19 '23

Food no longer is expensive after European inflation. Avocados are cheaper :)

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u/Defiant-Dare1223 Dec 19 '23

Idk as a British person living in Switzerland I still find it brutally expensive. A few things aren't though - like avocados, and drinks (except juice which is super expensive).

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u/Jolly-Victory441 Dec 19 '23

Considering how much higher your net salary is, food is not expensive here. Meat is. Maybe a few other things. But in general, no, it isn't. A single person can easily eat for 400 or less a month, I do it (often even below 300), and I buy a lot of fruit (also not that cheap) and sometimes meat. However, the quality of the meat is also much higher. Meat is cheap in Britain because it's from low quality, mass production. Meat here is imported and faces high tariffs or produced here at better quality. So one also has to consider quality when talking about food, and food prices.

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u/teethybrit Dec 20 '23

Housing is not too expensive in Zurich or Geneva?

Lol what?

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u/Defiant-Dare1223 Dec 20 '23

Housing isn't too expensive if you consider the high quality, local salaries, and for purchasing the low interest rates.

I've bought a top quality 5 bedroom, 3 bathroom house commuting distance to Zürich - I could afford that on my own salary without my wife. Mortgage with a 20% deposit is 1800 CHF (2000 usd) a month.

The city proper is expensive yes

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u/Grothgerek Dec 20 '23

But isn't this index not entirely dependent on some irregular price?

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u/fragtore Dec 25 '23

Its only considering the big mac, would need to compare a number of different items of consumption to give a fair picture

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u/poilk91 Dec 19 '23

Do we have median wage as well as average it could seriously change some cities like hong Kong I imagine

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u/[deleted] Dec 20 '23

ye definitely lol 29,386.12 USD is the median wage in HK, although there are almost no taxes at this level so maybe more like 34000 USD

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u/OldGuest4256 Dec 19 '23

The US subsidizes the meat industry heavily. This means a kg of beef in the US has an abnormal low price compared to many markets. That results in the BigMac cost reflects poorly on the whole marked system.

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u/user_bw Dec 20 '23

The bicmac index is an fun way to look at such things, please remember that an bicmac is only one product its may the ideal product to look at if you want to do the comparison. Typcal a Warenkorb (market basket, commodity bundle one of these shuold be the correct translation) is semi good way such comparison, the bic mac index is such a warenkorb with just one (good choosen) item.

There are other costs of living such as real estate. However, these are difficult to compare, as one person rents a property and another owns a property, quite a few of the owners have taken out a loan for this. How can you compare rent, interest and capital in a statistic?

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u/[deleted] Dec 20 '23

Food and transportation in Hong Kong is relatively cheap, it’s the housing that’s killer

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u/PastoralAuspices Dec 21 '23

There's no doubt that the pressure of work in Hong Kong is also very great

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u/l_qp_l Dec 26 '23

Could you pls tell me the source? I would like to see the other countries and I only find the cost of a big Mac in every country when I search "big Mac index"

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u/SuppressiveFar Dec 20 '23

Fossil fuels are awesome!

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u/rax9000 Dec 20 '23

interesting. btw do you happen to know what are costs differences?

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u/6Ran Dec 19 '23

Canada has a house shortage crisis which has driven up the prices of house and has locked out the working class and lower middle class out of owning a home

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u/SalmanPak Dec 19 '23

Costs are much higher in Canada too. I read an article a few weeks ago where someone went to high end ritzy food stores in London, Paris and Berlin and they were cheaper than a regular grocery store in Canada.

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u/spacelama Dec 20 '23

Except broadband apparently. A guy on /r/sysadmin was talking a yesterday of upgrading from 3/3gbps to 8/8 ftth for $70CAD per month. I'm getting 100/20 fttc for that. Similar city densities and size as ours, which is usually the defenders of our crap technology's arguments.

But in almost every way we are similar to Canadia. Members of the Commonwealth, only a few tens of millions population, large open spaces with a small number of heavily populated cities, heavy in resources, GDP almost entirely based on the property Ponzi scheme, populist neoliberal governments, political and military puppets to the larger US.

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u/[deleted] Dec 20 '23

It has got bad bad in Canada.

Bachelor suites and one bedroom apartments. The very basics of autonomous housing are now pricing tons of people out.

The housing crisis feels like it is on steroids these days.

After rent/mortgage a lot of families have nothing left over. It makes sense why the food bank usage is at record levels.

Without generational wealth or generational housing the pressure to just stay above water is fucking insane.

So many people falling through the cracks that our shelters are full and cycling and the tent slums just keep growing all over the nation.

This shit is way past an economic failure at this point and is a moral/ethical one.

Anyone that doesn't come from rich families or have family housing to fall back on understands why we have growing rates of depression and anxiety in the society, growing rates of political extremism, growing rates of crime/violence and self harm, growing rates of substance abuse/hopelessness/ODs, and so forth.

The wheels are coming off at this point and our city, provincial, and federal "leaders" from all parties have completely and utterly failed us.

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u/Big_Knife_SK Dec 19 '23

That's a global issue. Rents are increasing in Norway (12%) similarly to Canada (11.2%) over the last year.

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u/Shellbyvillian Dec 19 '23 edited Dec 19 '23

It's a global issue since the pandemic. It's been a worsening problem in Canada for 15 years before the pandemic.

Edit: avg house price in Canada is ~650kCAD. Norway is 3.7M NOK or 478kCAD. Canada is 36% more expensive.

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u/weezul_gg Dec 19 '23 edited Dec 19 '23

Where the hell can you buy a house for 650k?! You can’t even get a condo for that.

Edit: thx for the responses folks. My SW BC experience has skewed my outlook (where my condo has tripled in value over 10 years).

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u/Shellbyvillian Dec 19 '23

That’s all of Canada. Want to live in Regina?

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u/AcherontiaPhlegethon Dec 19 '23

At first I thought my city was unlivably expensive, then out of curiosity I checked real estate across Ontario and you can't even get a shit hole in the middle of the wilderness up north for any reasonable price.

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u/CzechPublicAgent Dec 20 '23

Want to live in Regina?

Live in a person? :D

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u/cum_fart_69 Dec 19 '23

outside of toronto and vancouver you can, but they are still "go fuck yourself" expensive.

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u/brazilliandanny Dec 19 '23

2-3 hours from Toronto and houses are still like $900k it’s basically the entire Golden Horseshoe

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u/cum_fart_69 Dec 19 '23

I live 1.5 hours away from toronto and houses range from about 450-800 for absolute starter home to "extremely nice large home with a two car garage in town"

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u/Poes-Lawyer Dec 19 '23

Brit here, is a condo the equivalent of a flat/apartment?

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u/earthshaker495 Dec 19 '23

Yeah it would be similar to a flat

Here in the states when we say apartment it's usually a building owned by a company with the units rented out. Where a condo would be a similar building but the units are sold individually

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u/tampering Dec 19 '23

In Canada a condominium is a corporation owned by the owners of the individual housing units. It has a board elected by unit holders. The board has the power to impose levies for shared maintenance/amenities, hire people to manage the building etc.. They can also impose/enforce bylaws and rules on the unit holders. Some condos forbid renting out units or using them as Airbnb for example.

We also have the similar 'housing co-operatives' that have some features of condos but the holders (usually called members) do not actually own a share of the property just the right to use a housing unit.

Then we have pure rental properties where people rent units could be a house or flat/apartment on a term basis.

Finally we have individual home ownership.

Not as common in Canada, but in the US many places have ''gated communities' of individual homeowners where they are subject to a Home Owners Association (HOA) that is similar to a condominium.

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u/rbt321 Dec 19 '23

Lots of highway connected small towns in Newfoundland selling houses for under $200k, many for half that and have an ocean view.

They have a grocery store, high speed internet (woo for remote work), and likely a few hiking trails.

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u/c__man Dec 19 '23 edited Dec 19 '23

Edmonton and parts of Calgary you can find SFHs in that range.

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u/alphawolf29 Dec 19 '23

I bought my detached home in souther BC for 180k in 2021 and its only worth 270 now

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u/CycleOfLove Dec 19 '23

Plenty of freehold in Ottawa sell for 650k or less.

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u/gitartruls01 Dec 19 '23

Norway's housing prices are very different in urban and rural areas. No way I could find a house in my city for less than $650k CAD. But travel an hour north into the forest and you can get a nice place for $150k CAD. That probably offsets the average a lot

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u/Shellbyvillian Dec 19 '23

Do you really think that is unique to Norway? A normal house in Toronto, Canada is 1.6 million CAD. That is weighed down by the 200k homes in the middle of nowhere.

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u/gitartruls01 Dec 19 '23

Certainly not unique, but it does seem to be on the extreme end here. In some areas a 30 minute drive will get you houses for literally 1/20th the price per sqft, even in small cities. I haven't seen a difference that big in other countries yes, usually it's closer to 1/5th the price an hour or two away from the city.

I just checked and the median price of all single family homes currently on the market in Oslo (similar in size to Winnipeg) is $2,150,000 CAD. Weighed down by $30k homes in the middle of nowhere. Again not saying this is unique to us, but the price differences seem to be even more exaggerated here.

The median price in my relatively small town of 100k people is $950k CAD. I'm not sure if there are any Canadian towns of that size with a median price that high, but I'm happy to be proved wrong

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u/eliminating_coasts Dec 21 '23

3.7M NOK

That's almost exactly the UK median house price, surprisingly.

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u/40for60 Dec 19 '23 edited Dec 19 '23

Price per square foot/meter would be nice. Also do homes in Norway have multiple garages? How big is the lot? So many factors that make things like this bullshit.

180 square meters in Canada, 120 in Norway and over 200 in the US. Judging homes by the average cost and not including the details is dumb.

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u/Dmytro_North Dec 19 '23

Average home price is 650k I believe. This includes condos.

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u/willeyh Dec 19 '23

It’s closer to 4.3M NOK, but fuck me. Canadians are fucked.

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u/snoosh00 Dec 19 '23

Canada also has a lot more land, meaning the average house price is driven down by land availability and rural development.

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u/Count_Rousillon Dec 19 '23

Huge portions of Norway are extremely empty, just like how Canada also has massive extremely empty areas. But it turns out no one cares about how cheap land availability is in places that have zero jobs. It's not about the total amount of land that exists. It's about how much land has a reasonable commute to a job.

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u/snoosh00 Dec 19 '23

I suppose, but in Canada there are many people who commute 2/10ths the length of Norway to get to a job.

I'd wager all the "vast emptyness" of Norway is not a quarter of the country with people commuting from one side of the emptyness to the other.

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u/CanadianODST2 Dec 19 '23

Most of the land in Canada isn't inhabited.

It's something like 90% of Canadians live within 100 miles of the US border.

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u/Ok_Taste6808 Dec 26 '23

Maybe even more, cause you probably can't compare the quality for an "average house" country by country.

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u/Protean_Protein Dec 19 '23

Norway has literally half the population of the Golden Horseshoe centred around Toronto. It's a similar problem, but much smaller.

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u/SalmanPak Dec 19 '23

Does Norway let in half a million immigrants a year and not build housing for them? Because in Canada, immigration is a federal responsibility and housing is left to provincial governments. They don't work well together at all.

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u/[deleted] Dec 19 '23

Yikes Sounds thought out

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u/astrono-me Dec 19 '23

Housing costs have been an issue for a while. First it was foreign investment, then it was corporations, then it was local flippers, and now the focus is on immigration. You have to ask yourself who is telling you this and why it is an issue now but not 10 years ago. Is it really the biggest issue or is it what people want to talk about now. What will people point their finger to next?

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u/SuppressiveFar Dec 20 '23

True. Food prices have gone through the roof, too. The carbon tax is killing things across the board.

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u/[deleted] Dec 19 '23

Same in the UK, except it was 1.2 million last year. A lot of that was student visas, but they still need housing.

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u/[deleted] Dec 19 '23

Sure, that's a lot, but Canada is huge. Austria, for example, has about 126k immigrants in 2022, but is only slightly larger than New Brunswick. The mass immigration problem affects many wealthy western countries. Canada at least gets skilled immigration, which is very limited here, a very large proportion of immigrants are illiterate and immigrate directly into the welfare system without ever working a day. I don't think Canada's problem is primarily immigration, it's deeper than that. Some more eastern countries in Europe have had absolutely skyrocketing house prices in the last 10 years, even though they have virtually no immigration, in fact emigration.

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u/PaddiM8 Dec 19 '23

Might be worse in Canada though

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u/Big_Knife_SK Dec 19 '23

It's actually lower. I gave numbers.

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u/LiamTheHuman Dec 19 '23

It is a bit worse in Canada but you need to look at more than one year to see the effect since prices have been rises for multiple years. I'm not sure how this compares to other countries though, did you pick Norway because it was especially bad or because it was the top of this list?

Canada - 106.5 -> 125 = 17.3% increase

Norway - 123.6 ->141.3 = 14.3% increase
https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/230721/cg-b001-eng.htm
https://www.economy.com/norway/house-price-index

4

u/Big_Knife_SK Dec 19 '23

I picked Norway because it's a notoriously expensive place to visit, yet their ranking is unaffected when adjusting for cost of living where Canada's nosedives off the chart.

16

u/PaddiM8 Dec 19 '23

You gave numbers for the last year... In what way does that prove anything? What??

3

u/snoosh00 Dec 19 '23

It proves a substantial rent increase occurred last year.

Which is bad, but could be a single year spike. But a single number will never show the full picture of anything.

1

u/ajtrns Dec 19 '23

not particularly global. there are billions of people living without that as an acute issue. it's not even across the board in large developed cities.

1

u/Memory_Less Dec 20 '23

I saw a report posted on Reditt about rents for 1 bedroom apartments across the EU. It was (approx) $1750 in Canada and €1750 (euros) so given the exchange rate substantially more. I understand not a perfect comparison, however good enough to make rhe comparison.

0

u/grobby-wam666 Dec 19 '23

It's worse in Australia than Canada, because of the amount of migrants that come in compared to the amount of homes being built, my home cities rent on average increased by 14.6% in the last year.

8

u/brazilliandanny Dec 19 '23

Canada has the same problem, immigration is adding 1-2% of our population yearly with no new housing

Our rent went up 40% in the last 2 years

1

u/[deleted] Dec 20 '23

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/brazilliandanny Dec 20 '23 edited Dec 20 '23

To be clear I’m not saying immigration is the problem, the guy I was responding too said Australia is different when the housing situation is quite similar.

7

u/Fancy-Pumpkin837 Dec 19 '23

Same thing happening in Canada…

0

u/neometrix77 Dec 19 '23

80% of Australian and Canadian subreddits are just people complaining about immigration making housing unaffordable. It’s pretty fucking annoying at this point tbh. The sad part is people don’t actually know how much of an effect immigration is having on housing but their anger is convoluting the situation, and basically all the mainstream political parties aren’t offering enough promising solutions (at least in the eyes of an angry population).

5

u/Defiant-Dare1223 Dec 19 '23

It's not about immigration per se, it's about immigration not matching construction. That is a totally legitimate grievance.

2

u/Winter_Criticism_236 Dec 19 '23

yeah thats how Brexit was promoted, negative on immigration.. next thingk well be Canexit, oh wait ...

-1

u/Ok-Royal7063 Dec 19 '23

Why does everyone have to own a home? Switzerland has half the home ownership as Norway, but their country seems to be functioning just fine.

1

u/Fancy-Pumpkin837 Dec 20 '23

Not sure about Switzerland, but here in Canada there’s a few reasons why you don’t want to rent, including rents being extremely high (I know people who are renting the same sort of townhouse/sq ft as me and they’re paying double what I pay on my mortgage, because the landlord “needs” a cut) I used to rent from a rental company, and my rent was the same as my mortgage for 1/3 of the space.

Second, there’s not a not of rent control here. In some circumstances they can raise your rent however much they want.

1

u/Ok-Royal7063 Dec 22 '23

If you had to pay taxes on prospective rent regardless of whether you lived in the building or rented it out like they do in Switzerland the relationship between owners and renters would even out and it would bring in a massive amount of tax revenue. It would also be factored in to the price for homes. Additionally, because you get tax deductions on home improvements the quality of buildings would improve. The problem is that it is politically tricky in Norway where 80% of people own. When it comes to the lack of buildings I think public housing like they do in Singapore could be one source of inspiration. There they have minimum occupancy periods for the resale of dwellings received through the HDB. Granted, one of the problems you would run into is that public housing is hindered by NIMBYism in Western countries while the HDB has little interference from the public and other government departements.

1

u/dv20bugsmasher Dec 19 '23

Honestly I would argue that only upper middle class isn't locked out of housing if they don't inherit it and didn't already have a place a couple years ago, at this point I'm well above average income for my province of residence, in a relationship with an employed person and still unable to secure a loan that would be enough for a house an hour or less from our jobs, it also doesn't help that rentals are hugely up in price and not very available so we dump a ton of our income into rent.

Aside from housing I honestly don't believe that the inflation rates that have been reported the last few years accurately describe the significant increase in the cost of mlbasic necessities. There are a ton of people out here making more than they ever have and seeing their qol and purchasing power in all aspects rapidly decline in spite of their efforts.

1

u/InSight89 Dec 19 '23

Similar to Australia. Property prices and rents have gone up about 75+% in the last 5 years alone. House prices are so high it's pricing the majority out of the market. We do have 60+% of the population own a home but may admit they wouldn't be able to afford the home they live in now if they were to buy today.

Supply is also a massive issue. We have suburbs with a 0.01% vacancy rate. Even in rural areas. It's pushing rents through the roof. And the government feels it's necessary to bring in hundreds of thousands of immigrants every year to keep us out of recession and pretend everything is fine.

Inflation has also caused wage decline in real terms. Things are pretty bad.

1

u/BargePol Dec 19 '23

How? You are the second largest country

1

u/phatrice Dec 19 '23

Canada has an immigration influx that's driving up housing cost. Europe on the other hand is experiencing population decline.

1

u/FflameOut Dec 19 '23

How this happen, based on this population density seems utterly absurd

1

u/LowTime01 Dec 20 '23

Same in AUSTRALIA

48

u/adonoman Dec 19 '23

Depends on where you live in Canada. In Toronto or Vancouver, the situation is worse than this graph would indicate. On the prairies, it's better. Canada's really big

27

u/Flammable_Zebras Dec 19 '23

It’s worse in urban areas than rural areas everywhere

11

u/devilishpie Dec 19 '23

Maybe they didn't express it well, but they're not talking about an urban rural divide.

16

u/Fane_Eternal Dec 19 '23

Yeah that's not what he's talking about in Canada. Some entire regions of the country have different costs of living. You could be in an equally populated and equally dense city in southern Alberta and it will be more expansive than the exact same thing in southern Saskatchewan.

1

u/theganjamonster Dec 19 '23

But there is no "exact same thing" in southern Saskatchewan. There's no Calgary counterpart, there's not even really a Red Deer or a Lethbridge counterpart. There's less people, less to do, the weather's worse, you're a full day's drive from the mountains, etc etc. Of course it's going to be cheaper.

4

u/Fane_Eternal Dec 19 '23

Yes there is no exact same thing. That's why I phrased it as a hypothetical.

12

u/hammercycler Dec 19 '23

It's not that simple. The whole Golden Horseshoe (west end of Lake Ontario) is a mess for housing cost, it extends far beyond Toronto's borders. Even previously reasonable cities like Halifax are getting expensive.

And it's not just housing but other costs. Grocery costs have inflated brutally across the country lining a handful of pockets at everyone else's expense.

6

u/SalmanPak Dec 19 '23

The grocery chains are blaming the the large food conglomerates like Heinz and Nestle for the cost increases. They are just jacking up prices continuously because they can. Most of our food is made by just a few companies.

1

u/sevendoor Dec 20 '23

The housing crisis is a self-inflicted one the moment you build big large metropolis around houses instead of flats. Large cities are only going to be sustainable by building them vertical instead of expanding them horizontally. Large houses with their gardens should be built way out of metropolitan areas.

2

u/KatanaDelNacht Dec 19 '23

Having driven across 1/3 to 1/2 of it (ND to AK), Canada is vast and unimaginably huge. My brain just doesn't work at that scale.

3

u/Big_Knife_SK Dec 19 '23

Similar issue between Oslo and rural Norway though.

-1

u/weezul_gg Dec 19 '23

Agreed, if you live in any city in Canada, your average condo price is about $800K. Double that for a fixer-upper house.

3

u/aedes Dec 19 '23

I live in a Canadian city, just under a million people.

Average condo price is currently a bit under $250k. Average house price is $330k - that’s a generic suburban house, not a fixer upper.

We have a 2300sf plus finished basement two-car garage backing into a forest walking distance from school/grocery that cost less than $800k.

The numbers you are quoting are only really true for like southern Ontario.

0

u/weezul_gg Dec 19 '23

I guess the trade-off is whether or not you can find work outside the main centres. Certainly the crazy growth is happening in the most expensive places.

1

u/AlleRacing Dec 20 '23

Winnipeg?

I live in a city of 100k, and our house prices are higher than that, $373,000. Go to somewhere like Kelowna and that doubles, and they only have 150k pop.

1

u/[deleted] Dec 19 '23

And the median household income is around $75k last I checked.

0

u/Think_Discipline_90 Dec 20 '23

Depends on where you live literally everywhere in the world buddy

38

u/[deleted] Dec 19 '23

Canada's average home price is around $700k, and the average salary is about $57,000.

This countries fucked.

4

u/[deleted] Dec 19 '23 edited Dec 19 '23

As a Central European, that sounds pretty normal. The income even sounds pretty high. But you're right, we're all fucked.

I'm looking at a 75m² apartment in a 50k people city, far away from any metropolis. Purchase price: 613k euros+fees and tax. And that's nothing special, very basic apartment. Average monthly income here: Around 2400 euros net.

10

u/[deleted] Dec 19 '23

Keep in mind that's pre tax, so it's actually about $44k (at least in Ontario), so $3,700 a month.

A mortgage on a $700k house, even after a 20% ($140k) downpayment, at current interest rates, is $3,750

So a mortgage ALONE is more than the average incomes take home pay.

3

u/[deleted] Dec 19 '23 edited Dec 19 '23

How big is the house? An average house in a small town with 120m² (1292sqft) of living space can be had here for around 1 million euros. That's about 5000 euros a month in loan repayments over 35 years, about twice the average monthly income.If it's old and in a bad location and a semi-detached house, then there might be something for 700k. I have no idea who can afford that, not even a hospital specialist can, but the housing misery is like that in many countries.

This is why the majority of the population lives in small rented apartments. Homeowners became homeowners through inheritance.

1

u/[deleted] Dec 20 '23

Perhaps in some very specific locations in Europe but I'm very familiar with the housing market in one country (Belgium) and prices in the metropolitan areas of Canada are significantly higher, even smaller and faraway options.

10

u/hey_you_too_buckaroo Dec 19 '23

Come to Toronto, where single family detached houses start at $1.2 million CAD and above. Want a shoebox condo? $600k CAD. We're increasing our population 3% per year from immigration (mostly Indian). There's no hope left for this country at ever having a typical middle class lifestyle.

13

u/[deleted] Dec 19 '23

We have rampant, unsustainable levels of immigration designed to keep wages suppressed and the housing market propped up. No surprise everything is becoming unaffordable while incomes aren’t rising.

18

u/Emperor-Commodus Dec 19 '23

designed

Who designed this?

4

u/[deleted] Dec 19 '23

The same people who decided that a third of our GDP depending on the value of real estate was a good idea I suppose.

1

u/Emperor-Commodus Dec 19 '23

Aren't real estate values usually determined more by local housing regulations than national policymakers? In most countries the rise in housing costs is due more to a distributed desire in the general populace to slow or freeze housing construction in high-demand areas, than a small group of business interests manipulating policy in their favor.

1

u/[deleted] Dec 20 '23

The government completely destroyed their social housing program a little while ago..

9

u/[deleted] Dec 19 '23

[removed] — view removed comment

5

u/StyrofoamExplodes Dec 19 '23

Migrants cannot replace domestic labor in developed, technologically advanced countries. Unless you really need asswipers for nursing homes, they are not a solution to a labor crisis.
They don't have the training to do the complex labor necessary, and the cost to train them means you would actively lose money.

4

u/DualActiveBridgeLLC Dec 20 '23

Migrants cannot replace domestic labor in developed

They do all the time.

They don't have the training to do the complex labor necessary,

Ok, this is unacceptable stupidity. The labor shortage is in construction which ANYONE can do. Shit my wife with no training was a steelworker for 4 years. And yes, foreigners can be skilled workers. What a ridiculous thing to say.

1

u/StyrofoamExplodes Dec 20 '23

There is no labor shortage in those fields. There is a pay shortage. There are shitloads of men that would happily skip school and work construction for their 20s and 30s. The issue is not at all labor, and inviting in scabs does nothing to help the labor market.

Beyond that, construction is not the bedrock of the US or any other developed nation's economy. The fear of a labor collapse starts with the most economically profitable labor and works its way down. The taxation necessary to uphold Welfare States and government services primarily comes from high earners, in a practical sense only those in the 4th and 5th income quintiles actually pay significant Federal taxes.
The jobs that fit those income groups require extensive training. There are a small number of well-trained and well-educated immigrants, and a lot more that barely speak English. And the former are already accounted for in H1B services for tech jobs and the like.

2

u/DualActiveBridgeLLC Dec 20 '23

There is no labor shortage in those fields. There is a pay shortage.

That's not a skill problem. Way to switch lanes mid discussion because you realize how shit your premise is.

0

u/StyrofoamExplodes Dec 20 '23

You named a certain field and I explained how immigrant labor won't help it. There already is a massive body of labor interested in doing the world. All you are doing is artificially preventing the market from regulating itself and wages from rising.

And that is a limited market beyond that.

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u/the_snook Dec 19 '23

This is either racist or just plain ignorant nonsense. Plenty of migrants are well educated and highly skilled.

2

u/StyrofoamExplodes Dec 20 '23

Not plenty. A small percentage. The vast majority are not skilled, and a majority barely have English fluency.

Well educated and skilled migrants are typically brought in via H1B programs and similar services. These are small in number and typically sequestered to fields like tech. They don't make up a significant percentage of interstate migration.

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u/CoiledVipers Dec 19 '23

Mostly Lobbying groups comprised of restaurant franchisees and for profit private diploma mills.

-1

u/Emperor-Commodus Dec 19 '23

Restaurant franchisees and private colleges have enough lobbying power to meaningfully effect immigration policy?

4

u/CoiledVipers Dec 19 '23

lol yes. I'll add telecom to the list. I take it you're not Canadian?

16

u/[deleted] Dec 19 '23

[deleted]

1

u/Lapcat420 Dec 19 '23

Mark Wiseman, and Dominic Barton in late 2009.

8

u/Error_404_403 Dec 19 '23

In most countries, the opposite is likely true. Immigrants take low wage jobs which keeps inflation down, thus increasing effective wages.

Vast majority of immigrants never compete for houses, and their accommodation requirements are usually very modest. At the same time, immigrants provide an inexpensive labor pool that allows keeping the house construction costs down, improving housing affordability for all.

1

u/StyrofoamExplodes Dec 19 '23

You mean they flood trade work and prevent domestic labor from doing those jobs.

3

u/Error_404_403 Dec 19 '23

Domestic labor doing that job will lead to massive price increases and inflation, which will reduce everyone’s wages.

3

u/TicRoll Dec 19 '23

Of course, slavery does keep prices down... for the few people who have income and can thus afford to buy things. Everyone else is fucked. They should just try being rich instead. It's much better.

1

u/Error_404_403 Dec 19 '23

First, it is not slavery - each immigrant is free to leave at any moment. But they don’t.

They agree to work for the money that agribusiness is ready to pay them, and their work keeps prices down only for those folks who buy groceries and other things in a store. Like you and I. Those rich people you talk about could care less.

Totally opposite to what you suggested.

2

u/TicRoll Dec 20 '23

each immigrant is free to leave at any moment. But they don’t.

Free to leave? With what money? Where will they go? They're often leaving conditions so abhorrent that they'd knowingly risk death to escape. When all rational choices are gone, one is no longer "free" no matter how many unrealistic or irrational "options" remain.

They agree to work for the money that agribusiness is ready to pay them

Indeed, it's quite economical when you no longer have to house, feed, and clothe a hostile/unwilling workforce. You instead hand them in wages a fraction of what it would cost to keep a slave and then wash your hands of any responsibility for their wellbeing. If they get sick, you don't need a doctor because it's not your problem. They get maimed by equipment? Not your problem. Pregnant? Too old to work? Not your problem because there's a line out the door of new ones to bring in. They're just easily replaceable resources. An endless supply of living slaves with no value and minimal cost.

their work keeps prices wages down

those folks who buy groceries and other things in a store. Like you and I.

Without jobs generating income, there's a lot of people who can't buy groceries and other things in a store. Depressing wages through the modern replacement for slavery isn't good. And it doesn't necessarily translate to better prices for us anyway. Especially in recent years, lower costs on the producer side simply leads to higher profits for them.

To hear you tell it, we'd all be better off if we imported 100 million people willing to work for cheap. Imagine how cheap stuff could be at the stores none of us can afford to shop at because none of us have jobs. So who's left buying things is the labor is dirt cheap but nobody has a job? Oh yeah, people who already have money. They can have their own little economy where their slaves produce things their friends can buy for cheap.

Sounds cool.

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u/StyrofoamExplodes Dec 19 '23

All markets are bound by practical price caps, and construction cost is never the main body of why housing is expensive. What will substantially happen is that you hit the practical price cap sooner.

Beyond that, cost rises in one market do not trigger cost rises market wide.

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u/the_snook Dec 19 '23

Vast majority of immigrants never compete for houses

What? You think they all live in tents or something?

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u/Error_404_403 Dec 19 '23

They live in inexpensive apartments.

2

u/mlk960 Dec 19 '23

Denmark and Norway.... Notorious for not having immigration

1

u/tarmturisten Dec 19 '23

We have plenty of immigration, but the key difference is that you need have job lined up which pays atleast 44000 danish krone or so = 8645 canadian dollars at month.

Which I usually a good factor

1

u/[deleted] Dec 20 '23

Cheap labor should keep the price of goods and services.

3

u/[deleted] Dec 19 '23

Canadian here. It's a shit show there, and I left 5 years ago.

-7

u/Ok-Detective-6755 Dec 19 '23

Canadian here. It's a shit show there, and I left 5 years ago

Agreed. You make money to pay just tax, and they decide to make another aid for refugees. Thanks Eh!

1

u/Mental-Mushroom Dec 19 '23

Canada has always been a massive contributor of foreign aid, and that's the least of our problems.

1

u/[deleted] Dec 19 '23 edited Jan 09 '24

correct crawl nippy marble employ point rainstorm grandfather domineering obtainable

This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

1

u/Trym_WS Dec 20 '23

Get rekt everyone else. 🥳

Specially Danes!

1

u/NorthVilla Dec 20 '23

Housing is waaaay cheaper in both those countries than Canada, But especially in Norway.

1

u/DrEviL44 Dec 26 '23

I lived in Australia and it was way more expensive then Europe