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John Cornellier, having looked at the STC salary survey,
wondered <<Why are the Canadian salaries the same in Cdn
dollars as the US ones in US dollars, while a Cdn dollar = 67
US cents? Is the cost of living in Canada is proportionally
lower?>>
It's difficult to make blanket generalizations, since the cost of
living in (say) Vancouver is undoubtedly higher than that in
rural Alabama. But all else being equal, yes, the cost of living
is substantially cheaper in Canada. Whether that makes up for
the much more favorable tax system in the U.S. is an open
question; for some people, moving to the States would
dramatically improve their net income, whereas for others,
there wouldn't be much difference. (I'm basing this
conclusion on an article in a Canadian financial magazine that
compared four different family situations using real people
rather than hypothetical model families).
--Geoff Hart @8^{)} geoff-h -at- mtl -dot- feric -dot- ca (Pointe-Claire, Quebec)
"Perhaps there is something deep and profound behind all those sevens, something just calling out for us to discover it. But I
suspect
that it is only a pernicious, Pythagorean coincidence." George Miller, "The Magical Number Seven" (1956)
