Nearly half of Canadians would be in a bind if pay delayed: poll

Almost half of Canadian employees say they are living paycheque to paycheque, according to a new survey published Wednesday.

The survey, by the Canadian Payroll Association (CP), found that 47 per cent of respondents said it would be difficult to meet their financial obligations if their paycheque was delayed even by a single week. The situation is slightly more dire in Ontario, where 49 per cent are without a financial safety net.

Not surprisingly, these workers say they spend all or more than their net pay, with the most common excuse for increased spending being “higher living costs.”

If they save at all, the amount is well below the 10 per cent minimum savings level (of net after-tax pay) recommended by the CPA; 42 per cent of the survey respondents nationally said they save five per cent or less.

The lack of an emergency cushion is also apparent. Twenty-two per cent nationally say they could not come up with $2,000 within a month to meet an unexpected emergency expense such as a car repair.

Little wonder that 35 per cent feel overwhelmed by their debt levels.

Twelve per cent believe they’ll never be debt free while across Canada 42 per cent now believe it will take at least 10 years to pay down their debt (a figure that’s higher than the 36 per cent cited in the survey a year ago.)

The high cost of Canadian housing is also showing up in the survey. In previous years, credit-card debt was cited as the single hardest debt to pay off, but the 2017 edition finds for the first time that home mortgages are the hardest to pay off: 32 per cent citing them versus just 23 per cent who cited credit cards.

The survey numbers are worse for millennials and generation X: More than half of them would be in a jam missing a single paycheque (55 per cent for millennials in their ‘30s; 51 per cent for genXers in their ‘40s).

The CPA noted there was a five per cent increase in the number of employees with total household incomes above $125,000 per year.

Ironically, the way out of this savings conundrum is to make an effort to save paycheque by paycheque, a strategy the CPA and other financial experts generally term “Pay Yourself First.”

That means using your financial institution’s preauthorized chequing arrangements (PACs) to automatically divert 10 per cent of net pay into savings the moment a paycheque hits your bank account.

Just like income taxes taken off “at source,” the idea is that you won’t miss what you don’t actually receive.

The survey polled 4,766 Canadian employees between June 27 and Aug. 5.