2024-04-20 04:00:00
Young families have a mixed sense of bitterness and injustice in the face of the increasing difficulty of accessing the middle class, when they now need to earn around $100,000 per year to achieve it.
“No, no, no, we won’t win that…” breathes Eliott Laforce-Voyer, a young father from Limoilou, looking in the direction of his daughter, little Hilda. “It’s not unreachable, but I don’t think we’ll get there anytime soon.”
According to calculations by the Quebec Observatory of Inequalities (OQI), a household in Quebec must have an annual income of at least $103,900, following taxes and transfers, to officially be part of the middle class. In Montreal, the threshold is only slightly lower, at $94,700.
“These figures correspond to 75% of the median income in these two cities,” explains Geoffroy Boucher, economist at OQI. It is important to consider household income and not individual income, because people who live together tend to share their resources.
Earning these sums together is certainly not an impossible mission, but the vagaries of life can easily cause you to miss the mark, notes the small Limoulois family, whose income is regarding $90,000 per year.
“Eliott has a good salary, but I earn a little less, because I have work restrictions,” explains Marie-Michelle Corneau, Mr. Laforce-Voyer’s spouse, and confides that public grants for families are a big help in their case.
Sacrifice
Not being “officially” part of the middle class is not just a figure of speech, and we have to admit that having $10,000 less each year affects daily life.
“We’re not doing badly,” says the man who works in catering. “But it comes at the expense of an atypical work schedule, many evenings and weekends. And we hunt for discounts at the grocery store, we don’t make travel plans, so with our income, buy a house, you forget regarding it.
Even as they make all these sacrifices, Eliott and Marie-Michelle struggle to put money aside. “It’s a bit frustrating. I earn double the salary my parents had in their entire lives, but all my salary goes to rent [1625$ par mois] and the grocery store, says Elliot.
They’re not the only ones in this situation, as less than a third of Quebecers (27%) manage to put money aside each month, according to an H&R Block survey published earlier this month – this.
Indifferent to her parents’ words, little Hilda enjoys rising to her feet and falling back onto her mother’s knees. “She’s not leaving yet,” laughs Eliott, who is immediately reprimanded by his girlfriend. “Give her time, she’ll make it.”
Here’s what‘you need to earn to be in the middle class, depending on your household type
Note: The thresholds are set based on the latest OECD definition, i.e. an interval of 75% to 200% around the median household income following taxes and transfers.
Source: Quebec Observatory of Inequalities calculations based on tableau 11-10-0190-01 taken from Statistics Canada’s 2021 Canadian Income Survey. Thresholds are adjusted to account for inflation; they are presented in 2024 dollars.
1713597346
#harder #harder #part #middle #class
