A quick Google search shows that the average Canadian Salary is around $63,000 while in the US it is around $81,000.
But this may not tell the whole story.
In Ontario the minimum wage is around $10.00 while many states do not even have a minimum wage.
The US also has more head offices than Canada, meaning that there are more VP's and CEO's and investors living there, since they make mountains more than us mere mortals, this could def. skew the results.
Our population is only 10 percent of the US so it really isn't a fair comparison.
My feeling is we have a larger average of people relatively speaking that are considered middle class, and less very very rich and very very poor. This is our “socialistic” society. You may view this as good or bad. I tend to like the system, but I am biased, I live here.
We surly don’t see the same level of poverty in our inner cities like we see in the US. Although there are places I don’t frequent by myself in Toronto or Montreal at night.
Our taxes are higher but our health care and education are significantly cheaper.
Tuition for one year of University in Ontario is around $6000, around $2000 in Quebec. Where it can be three to four times that for a community college in the US.
This gives Canadians a better financial head start when finishing school over the US. Student loans here can be paid off in about a 1/3 of the time than it does in the US setting up a more stable financial future.
No one in Canada will ever have to mortgage their house to get health car for a child or to pay for post 2ndary school education.
Interesting stat; Canada and California have about the same population, 35 million give or take a few. In 2009, the number of homicides in California was around 2500, in Canada 611.
One of the biggest contributes to violent crime is poverty. I let the numbers speak for them selves.
I suppose this isn't the "forum" to discuss these issues, however, since it has been asked, it is interesting to especially take note of your comments comparing post secondary education costs "vis a vis", Canada/US and it would seem the Americans are very concerned about this, at the "highest" levels. The US has gone from first to twelfth in the industrialized world in the number of youth attending college and I am sure costs have a significant bearing on this and WILL affect the future competitive capability of the country. Canada is number one.
Taking in to account all of the things in this discussion, regardless of the costs, it is interesting to note that even with ratings by US publications of "liveable" cities around the world, Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal, Calgary along with several European cities are always at or near the top of the list.
The vast majority of US cities are "well" down that list.
As a wise person told me a long time ago, I guess there is a "price to pay for everything".
