More than half of Canadians are feeling “financially paralyzed” amid the surging cost of living, according to a new poll.
Fifty-five per cent of Canadians used that language to describe their finances, according to the survey commissioned by the Royal Bank of Canada (RBC).
Nearly half (48 per cent) added they could no longer afford to maintain their standard of living, while nearly a third (29 per cent) said their finances were in a constant state of chaos.
“It’s having to make decisions: which bill am I going to pay next? Am I going to ask my family for money perhaps, or move in with relatives?” said Craig Bannon, director of regional financial planning support at RBC.
“It’s the challenges that are coming with just being able to meet the regular monthly costs of living. And then those choices to make, am I going to pull from savings if I have savings, am I going into debt?”
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The gloomy economic outlook didn’t end there.
Half of respondents said all of their income was going to cover essential bills and expenses, with a similar number (47 per cent) saying they were living “bill to bill”, and had dipped into emergency or retirement savings to cover their costs.
Forty-eight per cent of respondents said they don’t think they’ll ever be able to get ahead financially, while a similar number (47 per cent) said struggling to deal with their day-to-day expenses made thinking about their financial future hard.
More than a quarter (27 per cent) said they’d taken on debt to cover monthly basic needs, while almost one in five (18 per cent) said they were “already over the edge” financially.
A significant majority of respondents, 60 per cent, feared they didn’t have enough money to cover unexpected costs or emergencies.
Bannon said while the results reveal significant anxiety, he said Canadians don’t need to feel powerless and can get help with their finances.
“If this was a medical health issue, you would seek out the expertise of a medical professional,” he said.
“We’re advising Canadians to use the same approach for their financial health and lean into the expertise of an adviser.”
The poll was conducted between Nov. 1 and Nov. 5, 2024, among a representative sample of 1,515 adult Canadians who are members of the online Angus Reid Forum. For comparison purposes only, a sample of this size would yield a margin of error of ± 2.5 percentage points at a 95% confidence level.
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