Business·Interactive
Use this interactive app to find out how inflation has affected the wages of people like you and to compare how it has impacted different subsections of people in Canada.
CBC News has created an interactive app to find out the real impact of rising prices
Andrew Lam · CBC News
·
With the price of essentials like groceries and housing skyrocketingover the last few years,many have struggledto keep up with the cost of living.
When prices rise faster than wages do, the money people take home effectively decreases because it costs more to buy the same things.
To help people in Canada understand and monitor how inflation has affected the value of their wages, CBC News has created an app (see below).
It uses the consumer price index (CPI) to calculate how much the median wage in a given year would be worth in 2023 when accounting for inflation. This means you can compare wages from different years.
- AnalysisHow inflation took a bite out of workers' wages as they rose over the past decade
Try the app for yourself to see how the real value of wages for different subsectionsof people has changed over timeand to compare whose wages have increased the most in the last decade. You can hover over or tap the charts for more details.
Methodology
CBC News follows the methodology set out on thispagefor adjusting dollar values for inflation, which Statistics Canada confirms iscorrect.
One assumption of this analysis is that the CPI applies universally to all people. In reality, the index encompasses the prices of many goods and services, some of which may not be equally applicable to everyone.
For example, a price increase for gasoline may affect people who own cars more than those who don't.
To inform the data analysis, CBC News spoke with Statistics Canada analysts and economists, including Jim Stanfordofthe Centre for Future Work and Fabian LangeofMcGill University in Montreal.
About the data
The app uses data from two Statistics Canada tables: one for data aroundinflationand one forhourly wages in the provinces. It also uses custom data provided by Statistics Canada for Whitehorse, Yellowknife and Iqaluit.
The inflation data comes from theconsumer price index. This is a widely used indicator of inflation thatcompares how the price of a set of goods and services has changed over time. The CPI accounts for changes in quantity and size of products — something known as shrinkflation.
The wage data comes from the Labour Force Survey (LFS). This is a well-known Statistics Canada dataset that has been collecting information on wagessince 1997.
- CBC ExplainsEvery year, StatsCan tweaks how it calculates inflation. What to know about this year's changes
- Low productivity growth country's 'Achilles heel': Bank of Canada governor
Each month, Statistics Canada asks tens of thousands of households to provide information about various labour statistics for the people in their household, including their usual wage rate before taxes and deductions. They are asked to include tips and commissions. The usual hours that a person works is accounted for in the data.
Statistics Canada sometimes does not publish LFS data when there are too few respondents for certain subsets of people. This is done to ensure both confidentiality and a big enough sample size for reliability of the data.
The LFS currently excludes Indigenous people living on reserves. Statistics Canada said this is because many live in remote locations not easily accessible to the survey's interviewersand because of a short data collection period each month.
People in all other areas are included inthe LFS — meaning First Nations people living off-reserve, Métis and Inuit people are included.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Andrew Lam
Reporter/Associate Producer
Andrew Lam (they/she) is a Chinese-Canadian and trans reporter for CBC Nova Scotia. They are interested in 2SLGBTQIA+, labour and data-driven stories. Andrew also has a professional background in data analytics and visualization. You can reach her at andrew.lam@cbc.ca
App developed by Andrew Lam, Nael Shiab and Robert Davidson, design by Wendy Martinez
CBC's Journalistic Standards and Practices|
About CBC NewsCorrections and clarifications|Submit a news tip|
Related Stories
- Can you get paid for posting on TikTok? Not in Canada
- How inflation took a bite out of workers' wages as they rose over the past decade
- Inflation rising again on P.E.I., but consumers may avoid the worst of it
- Every year, StatsCan tweaks how it calculates inflation. What to know about this year's changes
