Money
 

Just converted the minimum wage rate in some areas in canada,

$7.15 equates to £2.90 to thereabouts, meaning a salary of £6000 pa.:scared: unless my calculations are incorrect!

Just out of interest, for tradesmen, decorators, chippies, construction professionals, what is an average wage? Is a salary of $60,000 unreasonable pay expectations once you become stable?

$60k is very reasonable ..good tradespeople can make $100k a year.


Ray

Thanks Ray, still, do people survive on this kinda money?

Thanks Ray, still, $6000 is paltry, do people survive on this kinda money?

Yes $60k is quite liveable here, it really depends on what lifestyle you chose ,

how big a home/ mortgage you want
and how big a car/insurance you want to pay

those are the 2 main expenses outside of reasonable living expenses

$60k after tax you get a take home of around $3600 per month

Re: Money
 

Ontario Hourly Min Wage is $7.25 for Students under 18 employed up to 28 hours in a week, or during a school holiday. So we're not really talking about family breadwinners here but pocket money for kids.


According to the DTI Website it looks like the UK equivalent for 18 to 21 year olds is £3.80 per hour so what's their expectations?


You might want to taker a look at

http://www.statcan.ca/english/Pgdb/famil21a.htm

for more detail.

It most certainly is not for only students under 18 this is the living wage for the huge working poor underclass that exists in Canada, and which I may add consists predominantly of immigrants. I should know because I work for these wages (and have done so for over 2 years) and my wife gets only a little more at $7.75. Indeed at her workplace most people were or $6.85 until quite recently. All that for people with higher degrees. Likewise I've discovered that people working in these jobs for such low money have been doing so for years and years. Hence they are in no way some kind of temporary situation that immigrants do for a few months.

In terms of Sukhi's question, people live here on that money, thats why Canada is the only country in the Western world, that has foodbanks, where people can't afford to get their children immunised for serious diseases or where people can't get basic dental care. I'll give you an example of a woman I know who had been working for minimum wage pretty much her entire life (52 years old) (Degree in Library Science BTW), she had no savings of any kind and she used to tell me things like she could only do baking once every three months because she could not afford the electricity. Similarly I know another guy who lives only on bread and potatoes smeared with lard.

Thats the reality of Canada, and as an immigrant you're most likely to end up in this huge working underclass of minimum wage immigrants. But hey 'Best country in the world right' yeah like F@#$K it is!

The reality is that on a aggregate level the opportunities and standard of living are higher in the UK, especially when you factor in that you're not going to pay for basic immunisations, drugs for chronic conditions and if worst comes to worst there is some form of free dental care. Truth is you could be the poorest person in the UK and you would still be a thousand times better off than a similar person here.

Re: Money
 

IMO think this is a common mistake.

$7.50 per hour gives you an annual salary of $15600, not 6000 GBP. No one is going to pay you in GBP, and all your bills will be in $CDN. My point is that once you are living and earning here, what your salary is in GBP is irrelevent, its what it will get you in Canada that counts.

Having said that you can bet that if it is hard to make ends meet on minimum wage in the UK, it is just as hard to do in Canada. There are some government assistance programs and rebates that come into play at this income level, so there will be a bit more than there seems, but it will not be an easy existence.

As far as other occupations go, HRDC publish all kinds of labour market stats, including wage ranges in various jobs, so check out the site at

http://lmi-imt.hrdc-drhc.gc.ca/stand...pid=43&lcode=E

Good luck

Iain

Hmm, so there are no foodbanks in the USA then, not even drive through ones in Pennsylvania so they can deal with the clients in a more efficient manner as there are so many.

Have you tried to get NHS dental treatment in the UK, its no joke! Are you tellling us that the USA now offers free dental care? Thats something I hadnt noticed.

If you know someone who eats only bread and potatos and lard, for gods sake point them towards a food bank. Gleaners and other organizations do great work to help folks like your friends to get fresh veg and canned goods at litttle expense.

It is easy to point out where people are struggling, but what about the tens / hundreds of thousands of immigrants living in relative prosperity in the burbs of toronto and vancouver. I think they would disagree with you. What about the many regular contributors to this forum, who generally seem pretty happy with their lot in Canada.

Sure, some people struggle, most dont. This is true wherever you go.

Iain

Yeah but at least it is available mate, compared to nothing here.

Sure and its this minority image that sucks in most would be immigrants to thinking that its prosperous here. Not to mention the fact that most of these people are one step away from losing their home because they have no employment rights, if they lose their job.

Well yeah if you only move in bourgeois circles then I guess you have no idea about the reality of this country and clearly much of the world who have less than $1 per day for food.

Re: Money
 

before i moved here i, like everyone else, used to convert everything back into pounds. ive learnt now not to do this. for everything we spend a pound on back home its a dollar here. the cost of living in a lot of areas is generally a lot cheaper. i know $7.15 isnt a lot in english money but try to look at it for now as £7.15. once you start paying for everything in dollars you wont even give it a thought.

Sorry to hear about your difficulties, but you are underperforming the averages for immigrants to Canada. Now why is that? Here are the facts:

http://www12.statcan.ca/english/cens...earnimmedu.cfm

Anecdotal stories only oversimplify. You obviously have no idea what health care is like for people in the US who are uninsured or underinsured. If people in Canada are so poor that they can't pay for dental care, they can apply for welfare and obtain coverage for dental care.

If you can find a better country, then perhaps you should move to it.

Wrong, Canada's standard of living is higher than that of the UK.

http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/61/54/18598754.pdf

Canada's purchasing power parity (per capita volume indices - constant 2000 PPPs) is one of the highest in the world - higher than Australia, Japan and even Switzerland!

Gosh! Seem to have started heated discussion here!

I multiplied the hourly rate by 40 hours x 52 giving $14,872 converted at the current exchnge rate that gave £6000, but still its only a calculation.

I think that the point about only students living on this salary is untrue as from previous threads it seems there are a number of people with families living on this wage.

Statistics and figures are fine but there are hard luck and good fortune stories. Each person will have different experiences. In general I know that I cannot expect the same level of salaries etc as the UK., I don't intend to have a mortgage if I can help it, and I can survive as I can turn my hand to most things, even if I am just working as a handyman doing small jobs. If necessary we intend to buy a small business, so that we can manage, we don't expect to get rich but I want to have a better environment for my children, and the hope that they will make their lives and future in a country which I personally think has opportunity, I will manage the best, as I can until they are independent, and this is the reason I want to move to Canada, not for myself, but for them.


Canada is what you make of it, from what I've read and what I've discussed with family, i don't expect an easy ride, and I look at the whole experience as part of a learning curve in life.

Sure, I can fail, but God willing, I think that the experience will be an enriching one, and one hopefully thaty we will never live to regret.

Thanks for all your advice.


;)

I'm getting a little tired of reading these sort of negative comments! It seems like this forum has become a place for disgruntled ex-pats to air their greivances about Canada. Ok, there is poverty in Canada, there is poverty in the UK too. What's the big deal? My partner lived on welfare in NS and managed to run a car! I find it very hard to believe Canada suffers almost Haitian style levels of deprivation as is being insinuated here. Many people in Britain survive on £4 an hour and have done for years. There is NO difference. Leeds for instance has huge estates full of poverty and social exclusion. Stop trying to make out the UK is all rosy because it isn't! Would you like to live amidst burnt-out houses on a run down council estate? No! Yet plenty of people in Britain do.

I would take some of these comments with a very, very large pinch of salt! Yes, Canada does have one of the highest standards of living in the world! In fact I will rake out the statistics if you want me to? The UK has much higher child mortality rate, higher teenage pregnancies and shorter life expectancy. These are usually good indicators of hardship. Poverty is relative of course, but I would say the poor in Britain are much poorer than those in Canada. Even the so called rough areas are nothing compared to the rough areas in the UK. Goodness have some you ever seen places like Easterhouse in Glasgow or Peckham in London?! They make Jane/Finch in Toronto look wonderful!