is life better in the USA or Canada that is the question we'll be exploring today and in this video I'm going to show you the data and my personal experience so that you can make your own decision and at the very end I'll give you my honest answer is life better in America or Canada oh okay this is going to be a tough one but in order to have that discussion we first have to set up two frames frame one this video is based on my own research and experience I've spent over 20 years in Canada and the last few years in the states and while I've done my best to give an accurate comparison keep in mind there are still nuances that I'm going to miss these are huge countries with tons of diverse people so ultimately I will be generalizing that being said though if you want to dive deeper I've left all of my sources in an annotated bibliography down below frame two I love both countries I love Canada and I love America I'm not here to pick sides or declare one as Superior than the other because what does that even mean things are just different y'all and at the end of the day it's whatever's best for you now on to our first topic of six which is [Music] income when it comes to comparing the cost of living and income between Canada and the USA we first have to acknowledge that it's not as simple as just slapping a price tag on a country and calling it a day salaries can vary dramatically not just between countries but between regions in the same country and sometimes even between neighborhoods in the same city so that's why instead of relying on National averages which tend to blur things I've pulled data for five Canadian cities and five American counterparts of a similar size economic profile and Regional role the first pair is Toronto versus Chicago they're both major Financial hubs along the Great Lakes with a similar population and climate some might think to compare Toronto to New York but I don't think that's exactly Fair first of all the population of the New York metropolitan area is three times bigger than the greater Toronto area and furthermore New York City is a global Powerhouse it attracts businesses artists investment from all over the world and while yes Toronto is significant as well it doesn't one toone match the exact scale of New York City next up we have Montreal versus Boston both are historic cities with a similar population size and also major Healthcare and education hubs Montreal has Mill and Boston has Harvard and MIT next one is pretty straightforward we have my hometown Vancouver versus Seattle they're both Tech hubs in the Pacific Northwest and just 3 hours away from each other next is Calgary versus Denver both are energy and natural resource hubs near the Rockies and lastly we have Winnipeg versus Minneapolis both are really cold similar population and relatively affordable compared to the larger cities this should give us a balanced mix of larger cities and Regional hubs but what do you think let me know if you think these comparisons are fair or if you have any other suggestions all right let's dive into the incomes these are the estimated median total household incomes for all of our Canadian cities as of 2024 on the lower side we have have a Winnipeg at almost 80,000 a year and Calgary sitting in the six figures these are the estimated median household incomes for our American cities we can see here that in three of our five American cities the median household is making over six figures a year now first reaction might be oh income in America is so much higher than Canada therefore life is better case closed but this isn't the full picture yes salaries in the US are higher but there's a caveat right it depends on which state you look into Anastasia is one half of the YouTube channel make that change which talks about all things Canada they recently did a comprehensive cost of living analysis that I'm using as inspiration for this video I was shocked to learn that like salaries in the US vary so much like someone in Mississippi or like in those southern states make like literally 3x less than some other states I knew there was variability but not that much that was huge for me so let's see how far that income goes starting with [Music] taxes now there's a common misconception that income tax and Canada is much much higher than in America Canadians are getting crushed by taxes too much tax too much control don't come to Canada and it certainly feels that way I thought this for a while myself but when we run the numbers on each of these City pairs we can see that the percentage of your total income going to the government isn't actually that far apart for our American cities 25. 6% of your income goes to federal state and f on average and in Canada that average is 26. 8% now it's important to note here that these are onp paper tax rates meaning if you were to run the median household income in each of these cities through an income tax calculator for that state or Province this is how much you'd be paying on paper before any deductions any credits or write-offs but of course everyone's tax situation is different you might have deductions and credits so it all really really depends altogether though in both countries you'll be keeping around 74 is% of your income as estimated annual take-home pay and when we divide these figures by 12 we get an estimated monthly income for each of our cities but this isn't the full picture we must not look at just incomes you could be making hundreds of thousands of dollars but if you're spending all of those hundreds of thousands of dollars that does not really make the difference you're just kind of spinning the gears it's not how much money Flows In is how much money you're actually able to retain which brings us to our second factor out of six cost of living we'll take a look at three different expense categories to figure out how far your income actually goes in each of these cities let's start by looking at rent according to crowdsource data from the platform numo these are the average rents for a one-bedroom apartment in the city center as a general rule of thumb Financial experts say that you shouldn't spend more than 30% of your gross monthly income on rent unfortunately only five of our cities here meet that Mark in fact in Vancouver things are so bad that a one-bedroom apartment in downtown will eat up nearly 52% of your monthly paycheck if you're making the median income in comparison though a one-bedroom apartment in downtown Seattle will only take up 30% of your monthly income there's also a small difference between Boston and Montreal but other than that things are pretty close next up let's look at other household expenses like groceries for two people eating a 2,000 calorie per day diet this is how much a month of groceries might cost you in each of our cities the top axis is in US Dollars and the bottom is in Canadian they're both aligned using a PPP adjustment factor of 1.
17 so each Dollar on the top axis represents $1. 17 on the bottom axis and as a percentage of income you'll be spending more in Canada than in the US but why is that US is an agricultural country so I think us has the luxury of producing a lot of crops in the country whereas Canada does not have that much luxury most of the country is the Canadian Shield which is pretty much UNH harvestable so overall when we look at rent and household expenses as a percentage of your monthly income this is where we really start to see things diverge Canadians in all of our cities are spending more on their basic living expenses than their American counterparts this is especially true between Vancouver and Seattle where that difference is almost 36% what is going on with Vancouver I you tell me what is happening just the numbers don't seem to make sense and honestly like I thought when I was doing the math like I thought I like I just missed something someone in the comments told us that what happens most of the time is just people live either with their families or with their roommates so they kind of split housing costs and that really is the biggest thing they do to reduce their cost of living but this isn't the full picture because we're missing one last really big thing that might be able to close the gap and that is Healthcare health insurance costs in the US can vary dramatically depending on the state you live in and the type of plan you have for example if you have an ACA plan without any credits in Illinois it'll cost you $473 a month but if you live in Massachusetts and you have tax credits it'll cost you only $34 so because of this variance I'll just be meeting in the middle and using an employer sponsored plan as The Benchmark this is how most Americans get their health insurance anyways Healthcare in Canada is largely free at the point of care and funded through taxes which we've already deducted still some Canadians opt to get optional supplementary insurance for things that aren't covered and no matter what your plan type and where you live there are still out-of pocket expenses like copays and deductibles to account for so if we take all the expenses we've discussed rent household and Healthcare and add them all up we start to see that aside from this monstrosity the cost of living Gap isn't actually that big for three of our five City pairs the Gap is only 2% making them effectively equivalent and between Minneapolis and Winnipeg that difference is about 10% the biggest disparity here is between Vancouver and Seattle where that Gap is 35% God this is exactly why I left literally the math doesn't math like what in any case these are General Trends and estimates of averages so there's huge margin here for individual variability it really depends on you but there's an important question that we have yet to answer cost of living doesn't account for quality of life and if the cost of living is relatively similar between these two countries what are you actually getting for your money what does living in one country get you compared to another after all we're trying to figure out where is life better well let's take a look at career [Music] opportunities Tech workers in the US are paid at least 46% more than Tech workers in Canada that's according to a new report highlighting the wage Gap Canada struggles with a slight brain drain problem I came across this survey from the University of watero which has one of the top software engineering programs in Canada and the survey says that in 2020 84% of waterl software engineering grads reported that they plan to work in the US upon graduating and of those leaving Canada 93% cited better compensation as one factor that would have motivated them to stay in Canada I feel like that checks out there's like a website called levels. fyi that basically like lays out approximately how much a lot of software companies in the US pays like you go on the website and you see like L4 engineer at Google makes this much L5 engineer at Google makes this much a lot of like waterl like computer science or software engineering students like go on that site and they see that the jobs in the US like pay significantly more than the ones in Canada and this Gap extends Beyond just the tech world I'm a musician by trade and amongst my musician friends back home in Canada there's this saying if you want to be a famous Canadian artist move to America as a musician or a filmmaker or whatever somewhere in the art specifically you get to a certain level in in Canada which yes it's difficult to you have to be very good and skilled and have a lot of connection but to kind of go any further you got to move to the the states I mean I'm in the hub of that in Canada which is Toronto but now that I've spent some time in like places like Los Angeles or New York City like it's not the same America is for the ambitious here there are massive industrial hubs that have no real equivalent in Canada Silicon Valley Wall Street ivy league Hollywood and furthermore some of the world's top schools are here people flock from all over the world to study at places like Harvard MIT and UC Berkeley and that's actually part of the reason I'm here I study at the fake Berkeley Berkeley College of Music but within the music world it's considered by many to be the best contemporary music school on the planet there's no real equivalent program like this in Canada now this isn't to say that you can't go far in Canada of course you can the Toronto waterl Corridor is one of the fastest growing Tech hubs in North America and furthermore with a rise of remote work you can pursue an ambitious career for from virtually anywhere be it a small town or a beach in Bali at the same time even with places like the Toronto waterl Corridor making big strides they still don't match onetoone the sheer scale and economic impact of the American market and so if you're trying to optimize for your career and material success then America might be a good place to be depending on your sector I do admire the US ambition and the kind of obsession maybe with work just generally speaking and again it's not for everyone I have a lot of friends who I went to school with who are now in New York or in the Silicon Valley they specifically went for that so that they could work more achieve more make more money but of course career isn't everything and this kind of intense work culture can burn a lot of people out I wanted to live in Los Angeles that was my dream and I had the opportunity to do it I could have moved and it could have been all covered I could have got the Visa I could have done the thing and I decided not to because my my values just changed as I got old and it was less of what you're talking about I would rather have the simpler life the US has a reputation for hustle American workers work on average nearly 15 work days more than their Canadian counterparts except in 2023 which I'm still unsure of what happened here kind of looks like a huge anomaly so I'll just be examining the prior years according to research from isotal over 40% of the Gap is due to Canadians taking more time off particularly higher income Canadians taking more vacation time than their their American counterparts in all three of the jobs that I've had in Canada it's always seen as like hey when you're expected to be here you need to be here but also you need to take vacation it's like we're paying you to not be here for a little while so that you can be a better worker for us whereas in the states especially if you work an hourly job it's always seen as like you're the problem if you're not working it's almost like anytime you are not here you're a burden for US Canada has a minimum of weeks vacation requirements some companies are offering more and then depending on how long you stay at the company you're entitled to longer vacation times and it's something you can negotiate in the US as far as I know there's no minimum vacation requirements so it's at full discretion of the employer now to be clear I'm not saying that Canada lacks ambition it definitely doesn't you can find whatever you're looking for in any country it's just that from my perspective Canadian culture overall just places greater emphasis on balance and a big part of that balance is Healthcare all right it's time to address the elephant in the room and this could very well be a deciding factor for our final verdict let's start by comparing the two systems Canada has a universal single-payer Health Care system this means all citizens and residents of Canada can get necessary medical services without any charges at point of care most Services except for prescriptions dental and vision are covered by the government through taxes in contrast the American Healthcare System is a multi-payer system most Americans receive health insurance through private insurers usually tied to their employer or for those without employers are purchased privately but even with some public programs like Medicare and Medicaid around 7.
6% or 25 million Americans have no insurance at all now while this is a clear structural difference between these two countries I don't think it's as simple as just saying free and good versus expensive and bad I think both systems actually have advantages and disadvantages and as a guy with chronic health conditions this has been particularly relevant to me lately so the other day I found myself in the ER in New York funniest story and while I was woozy out of my mind on the medications that they had given me I was signing a financial responsibility contract and contacting my insurer and that was just such a culture shock moment for me because I have never experienced that before that's like not something you think about in Canada now luckily I have the luxury of good health insurance meaning I only had to pay $150 for the ER visit as opposed to the outof pocket cost of 7,000 that's just one example though 7. 4% of us residents faced catastrophic Healthcare bills each year that's more than double the next closest country 100 million people in this country currently have some kind of healthc care debt that's about 40% of adults which leads us to one of the biggest issues with the American Healthcare System the cost to individuals the fact that if I didn't have adequate health insurance meant that I could be paying $7,000 for an ER visit or $20,000 for a necessary medical procedure is absolutely mindboggling to me my Canadian brain cannot comprehend it just to put it into perspective Healthcare in Canada except for prescriptions dental and vision is largely free like for my American friends imagine walking into the doctor's office and not having to give your insurance card not having to check if they're in network not having to worry about co-pay deductibles all that kind of stuff you just walk in get treated and they're like okay bye most Canadians don't have crazy medical bills and furthermore don't even worry about it people always ask my wife and I you're like oh how did you guys choose Vancouver over San Diego or like what was the deciding factor well healthc care is one thing if we were making the same amount of money but living in the States but also needing to pay for healthcare because my wife and I don't have the luxury of saying like well you know we can just cross our fingers it's like I have a heart condition I have to have regular medical expense and whatnot so I have to have health insurance so this is a big plus for the Canadian system but it is not a perfect system there's a lot of flaws and there's a lot of drawbacks the most glaring of which are weight times if you've ever been referred to a specialist here in Canada you know weight times are at an all-time high in 2023 it took on average 27. 7 weeks to see a specialist so that means it took 14.
6 weeks from referral to a specialist consult consultation and then an additional 13. 1 week weight from that consultation to actually receiving treatment but these wait times aren't just inconvenient they're dangerous after fighting to see an oncologist for almost 3 months an Edmonton man died of cancer without ever getting an appointment lengthy wait times for emergency care have become all too familiar right across the country according to DrWarren thk since May in Alberta alone seven patients have have died waiting for emergency care and this is especially important for people like Samuel I have a a heart condition and whenever I would need to go to the doctor whether it was a routine appointment or even just kind of like hey like you know I've been having some chest pain I could schedule an appointment with my cardiologist directly and it would be at most 2 weeks out whereas here I've been running into some issues with that I've been here for almost 3 years and there's still certain like Baseline testing that they haven't scheduled for me on the other hand in the US weight times are much shorter which is pretty great I get in and out to see a specialist super quickly but this isn't the full picture you see weight times appear shorter in large part because millions of underinsured and uninsured people aren't getting care again as of 2023 7. 6% of Americans have no insurance and 61% of them report skipping needed care because of the high costs and 25% of all Americans say that they have delayed care in the last 12 months because their worried about the costs I have experienced that a lot with patients that come in with pneumonia and came in when it got worse and had to be admitted to the hospital and we're like why didn't you come in sooner well I couldn't afford this bill so I was trying to take care of myself and this difference in Access is most evident in the fact that Canadians on average Live 5 years longer than Americans and on top of that out of all the oecd countries the US has the highest rates of avoidable deaths infant mortality and maternal mortality now these differences and outcomes are more about access than quality because once you're getting treated the care you'll get in both countries is pretty much the same the quality of the care when I'm actually seeing a doctor or when I've been in the ER basically the same but the actual time frame has been a pretty big difference so to summarize both systems deliver highquality Healthcare once you're in it's just that the American system is really expensive but has shorter weight times while in Canada it's free but has longer wait times so you're either paying with your time or your money there are no free lunches but Healthcare is only one part of what we'd call social benefits both countries take really different approaches to these so let's take a look at three big benefits first up let's look at parental leave Canada has one of the most generous parental leave programs in North America Canadian parents can take up to 18 months of combined maternal and parental leave on the other hand the US has no federally mandated paid parental Leave paid leave depends entirely on your state or employer so as a result only about 27% of American workers have access to Paid Family Leave another benefit is subsidized Child Care Canada recently began rolling out their $10 day Child Care Program which aims to make daycare more accessible and affordable the goal is to reduce the price of child care down to $10 a day on average across Ontario by 2025 on the other hand us child care costs are among the highest in the oecd I think the biggest takeaway that I've had from doing that analysis is is really bogging down to whether or not you plan to start a family if you plan to start a family it's going to be expensive in well it's going to be expensive in either country but it's going to be more expensive in the US next up are unemployment benefits Canada's employment insurance program provides up to 45 weeks of financial support if you lose your job through no fault of your own with a cap at $650 a week in the US as before unemployment benefits largely depend on where you live Most states offer up to about 26 weeks but the weekly cap can vary widely from 235 a week in Mississippi to about $1,000 in Massachusetts with the average weekly benefit being around $378 and lastly retirement benefits Canada's retirement system has three three key components CPP works like a savings plan you contribute while you work and then when you retire you receive monthly benefits based on how much you've contributed OAS is a universal pension available to all seniors and GIS is a needs-based supplement for low-income seniors this tiered approach ensures that all Canadian seniors regardless of their income level have some basic level of Financial Security the US has Social Security which functions similar to CPP you contribute while you work and then when you retire you get monthly payments based on Lifetime earnings if you're a high income earner Social Security can be pretty great for you but if you're a lower income retiree you might be a little bit more vulnerable unless you have some other private savings ultimately it's clear that Canada's social safety net is more comprehensive whether it's longer parental leave more consistent unemployment benefits or a tiered retirement system Canada social programs are designed with a focus on equity and access meanwhile in the US your benefits largely depend on where you live and where you work so if you're in a higher paying job with good benefits or live in a state that has a great coverage you're set but in other cases you might be left fending for yourself with minimal support now here's where things get nuanced America's safety net isn't entirely patchy and there are programs that provide relief for example Medicaid covers millions of low-income Americans and States like California and Massachusetts offer some pretty comprehensive protections so it's not like all Americans are left fending for themselves because the government won't give them benefits no of course self- responsibility and self-reliance are really important values it's just that access to these programs is a bit more challenging than you'd find in Canada which leads me to conclude that while the economic upside is bigger in America so too is the potential downside what do I mean by this okay you can make more money in America the ceiling is overall higher the companies are bigger there's just a huge market and really really competitive wages but at the same time I also think that the floor is overall lower because America's social programs vary so much from state to state and from Individual to individual if you fall on hard times it can be a lot more dire for example if you're struggling financially and then you get sick and then you lose your job and then because of that you fall into medical debt that is really really tough and this isn't just some extreme example medical debt is a leading cause of bankruptcy in the US on the other hand Canada has a relatively strong social safety net meaning if you fall on hard times you're not completely screwed you can still Access healthcare because it's free unemployment insurance and retirement benefits and that kind of security can give a lot of Peace of Mind in Canada we're in a little more the happy medium everything else is just a little the contrast is lessed exactly the things still exist there's poverty as there is everywhere and there's success as there is everywhere but those things are both little less than than in in America so it's like just taking on that risk or like deciding again what do you what's important to you you so to summarize while the economic upside is bigger in America so too is the potential downside and it all depends on how well you can personally manage the risks that you face in either country are you someone who can mitigate those risks with savings insurance and high paying job or do you prefer to have the peace of mind and predictability that comes from a more reliable safety net it all depends on your personal values and what you're optimizing for now it's onto our final Factor before our verdict livability according to the economist intelligence unit's 2023 Global livability index these are the top 10 most livable cities in the world we can see here that my hometown of Vancouver is at fifth place on this list alongside two other large Canadian cities now are you seeing what I'm seeing or rather not seeing the highest ranking American city is Honolulu Hawaii coming in at 25th Place the next highest American cities are Atlanta at 33rd and Pittsburgh at 3 4 in fact according to the economist cities in the United States have never hit the global top 10 in the index's 14-year history but why is that well first of all this index puts a lot of emphasis on Healthcare access which as we've discussed before can be a bit of a challenge in the United States but there are also other key factors here and I'll focus on three main areas first of all Canadian cities on average are cleaner than American cities I don't have any statistics to show you here but this is literally one of the first things that I noed noticed coming in here and you can probably ask anyone who travels back and forth I find American cities to be very dirty compared to Canada and I never thought that our streets were clean and again none of this is like hating on the country it's just like observations that was one thing I noticed right away coming to Vancouver generally speaking Vancouver is a very clean City especially compared to Seattle downtown Seattle I don't know when the last time you went but it doesn't smell good ever secondly I noticed that many large American cities struggle with engaging infrastructure inefficient public transportation and car Centric Urban Design for example cities like La Houston and Atlanta are known for their Car- Centric urban sprawl and congestion on the other hand most of the big cities in Canada have excellent public transportation systems bike networks and pedestrian infrastructure as a result Canadians on average walk twice as often as their American counterparts bike three times the miles and are twice as likely to use public transportation here we have have local train systems we have buses and even like street cars in Toronto which I think is so cool I love it the public transit is a lot more developed uh which gives us all a good alternative to not have to use our car at all times but lastly and most importantly Canadian cities are safer than American cities in 2022 the homicide rate in Canada was 2.
25 for 100,000 people whereas in the US it was almost three times higher at 6 .
