Sep24

Some Canadian economic “stats”

by Tomasz Konefal on September 24th, 2010

I came across an interesting series of charts this morning at zerohedge.com. These charts try to explain the USA’s financial future in simple terms. Obviously when, as a nation, the public’s debt starts rising faster than what it earns there can be a slight cause for concern.

Here’s the chart for US annual per capita income vs National debt per capita to demonstrate this concept.

This got me thinking about whether I could come up with a similar chart for Canada.

Sadly, I was only able to hunt down data up to 2007 for the Great White North. Additionally, I’m not so gifted in the arts of making charts and I’m certainly not a statistician, though I did take a few stats courses at university. Enough to make me dangerous ;)

Here’s average total income versus government debt.

Average Income vs Debt

And here is median total income versus government debt. The median is sometimes handier to use since it tends to nullify the impact of extreme figures at the tails.

Median Income vs Debt

These, to me, look downright boring compared to the USA scenario. However, very important data from 2008 forward is not available, so I honestly can’t say what shape we’re in.

In my quest for data I also found some other gems on the statscan website that are a little more current and can give us a clue to where the above charts might trend with updated figures. Net worth took a big hit in the last couple of years, but seems to be recovering a little.

Household Net Worth (Canada and USA)

And in a tangential note, check out this corporate leverage! Admittedly, this may be normal, but it still looks impressive to me, the untrained observer. I wish my leverage could be that high (or do I!?).

Corporate debt as Percentage of Equity

I hope you enjoyed this little episode of stats. Fun times!

Data sources: