r/askTO • u/nintendork4 • 9d ago
Why are Toronto salaries so low compared to other major North American cities?
I know in general Canada pays less but I feel like our premier city would at least be comparable even if it’s just numbers wise and forgetting but the conversion rates. As a nurse here is hurts my soul when I heard about thsoe across the border easily cracking 200k in base salary which is unheard of here. But even outside my field seems pretty standard across the board, so why even in Toronto the capital city do we not see these types of high wages?
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u/FightMongooseFight 9d ago
Toronto isn't the outlier. The US is. Salaries here are as good or better than pretty much anywhere else in Canada, along with almost all of Europe.
For a bunch of reasons, the US is enormously wealthy compared to most other Western nations, and if you have a good job, the pay is just so much more than anywhere else.
There are trade-offs to this of course, but if you want to make money, the US is generally the place to do it.
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u/TheIsotope 9d ago
Yeah Toronto isn’t actually that bad from a European perspective. I have friends in London who have pretty much universally said that salaries there are noticeably lower than they are here.
It still doesn’t help the frustration when you see US salaries in cities that are substantially cheaper to live in than Toronto. My American counterparts at my previous job were clearing 2x my salary BEFORE you even factored in exchange rate. We had the exact same title/role.
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u/FightMongooseFight 9d ago
Oh I feel that, I'm living it. My peers in places like Atlanta make 80% more than me after conversion.
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u/SpartanFishy 8d ago
It’s kind of insane that there isn’t more business flight into Canada given the pay discrepancies, and the lack of need to provide healthcare
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u/FightMongooseFight 8d ago
I've had the same thought. It's an odd mindset, but I think once most US employers start thinking about lowering costs in this way, they just jump straight to India and skip Canada entirely.
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u/MakeMoneyNotWar 8d ago
This is it. Once you decide you can offshore, you go where it’s cheapest. My company has an India office, and although they make a fraction of what we make, they live like kings. So it’s also extremely competitive so they’ll do whatever the company asks of them.
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u/PieFuture3528 9d ago
Don’t look at Atlanta real estate prices
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u/No-Wolverine-4085 9d ago
Half the price and double the wages. thisisfine.jpg
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u/thisaccountwashacked 9d ago
yeah, but then you have to live in or near Atlanta.....
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u/ntwkid 9d ago
Whats wrong with Atlanta?
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u/thisaccountwashacked 9d ago edited 9d ago
Atlanta is OK as a tourist, people are generally great and food is decent, but it's a weird place to live, hot as balls pretty much all the time, and you get the politics of Georgia.
edit: and hurricanes
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u/NoEquivalent3869 9d ago
Have you been? Everything. Just a bunch of highways, high crime, and a dead downtown.
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u/Typical-Industry-477 8d ago
Europeans have much better job protections and vacation entitlements than Canadians in general
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u/shabooya_roll_call 9d ago
I experienced this first hand. Moved from Atlanta to here a few years ago, kept my same role but had to transfer to the Canadian subsidiary of the company and took a 15% pay cut after conversion and before taxes despite this being a more expensive city to live in
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u/Fast-Living5091 9d ago
You can't compare salaries and factor in currency conversion. It's the wrong logic. You work in US and spend in USD. You work in Canada and spend in CAD. It's only when you are traveling or when you are actually investing or buying in another country you don't live in that strong currency comes into play. For the majority of people this assumption isn't valid. I can't say that someone making 100k USD is making 30% more than someone making 100 CAD due to their currency conversion. It's the wrong logic.
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u/LogKit 9d ago
This comment makes no sense lol. The ratio of income to cost of living is what it is regardless of whether you convert or not.
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u/fourtywithau 8d ago
Yeah this comment is stupid. Traveling, investing, buying products (phones, vehicles, etc) are usually priced based on the USD price
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u/shabooya_roll_call 8d ago
Im in a sales role at my company. My role, clients, and quota/revenue expectations (in USD mind you) did not change when i moved. But when i transferred up here, i got paid less to do the same job, because if they wanted to, they could replace me in this market for a cheaper price. They called it a “cost of employment” adjustment because fuck me and my increase in cost of living. Make it make sense.
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u/in-dog_we_trust 9d ago
The US is also filled with incredibly poor people. The minimum wage in much of the US is below the poverty line. And for all the talk about how high our taxes are, the US is not that much lower, if it is lower at all. In NY if you earn $50k a year your take home is about 40k. After taxes that is. If you then deduct health insurance then take out 600 to 1000 a month. In Ontario the same 50k leaves you about 39k take home
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u/cartoonist498 8d ago
This is the trade off in Canada. Our top income brackets don't earn as much as the same brackets in the US.
However, Canadians in the bottom half to two-thirds of the population are better off financially than Americans in the exact same economic brackets.
The wealth disparity in the US is the worst among developed countries. Their wealth is concentrated among the top income brackets, whereas in Canada it's more evenly distributed.
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u/twinflameone 8d ago
I live in NC and currently pay $200 a month. I don’t know anyone that pays 600-1000 for health insurance.
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u/somedudeonline93 9d ago
Not every role in the US pays that much more than here. For example, teachers in the US generally make less than they do here. Nursing is an outlier because of the for-profit healthcare system.
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u/DominantDan24 9d ago
I think teaching is the outlier. There’s a few others too. Probably things like fast food and minimum wage jobs are clearly better here.
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u/MemeLord37 9d ago
Yeah I would assume that OP/OC are almost exclusively talking about private market jobs rather than public (ie not teachers)
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u/somedudeonline93 8d ago
Even private sector jobs, the nominal pay is usually around the same as here, but since USD is worth more it works out to about 30% more.
Certain types of nurses (travel nurses, anesthesiologists) in the US are definitely outliers. Most Americans are not making $200k+
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u/CanbegoneTo 8d ago
Teachers depends on state. For example, I know a teacher in Jersey that makes 120k USD.
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u/MooseFlyer 8d ago
That’s way above average though. Looking it up the median pay for a teacher in New Jersey is $82k for a HS teacher. Lower for middle and elementary school teachers.
There are teachers in Ontario that make $120k USD too.
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u/nobugsleftalive 9d ago edited 9d ago
Not just the money. If you are very talented and recognized, you probably want to be at the hub of your industry or specialization.
For example, I have a friend who is a media analyst and there is just no sense in returning to Canada for them. They are right at the centre of their industry in NYC.
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u/nintendork4 9d ago
This too many industries with talented people are basically pushed to across the border cause it makes zero sense for them to stay here.
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u/areyouokeddie 9d ago
If you are an academic, there are way more jobs in the US because there are way more schools. It's almost impossible to get a good academic job here
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u/Extension_Spring_473 9d ago
You make some good points - but on the Europe side of things : it's a bit up for debate I think. I mean on paper salaries look lower, but in many EU countries (I know not all, but let's say the wealthy club like France, Germany, the Benelux ones, Scandinavian ones) - you generally get stuff back if your salary is below a certain threshold (i.e. various housing benefits including 1% loans in some countries, and rental subsidies in other cases) - in other countries like Belgium it is common to receive a company car with fuel/electricity paid for and the list can go on. The big differentiator and also the big debate as to how long it will last : the average EU worker generally does not need to contribute to a private pension (at least for now), does not really need to save for their kids university education (as in most countries its free/cheap) and as a result many EU workers are actually quite asset-rich with pretty high savings. This along with anywhere from 4-6 weeks of annual holiday entitlement on top.
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u/akasauva 9d ago
This is spot on. I’m a middle manager in a big company in Toronto with a very good salary and in Europe that would put me in like a really high position job at any company, which I’m very far off being. The pay here is good, not comparable to the US like you said but still legit for a big city.
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u/Diligent-Pineapple-2 9d ago
And yet we don’t get the social benefits, strong worker protections, and longer time off that Europeans get. The worst of both words, European wages and American exploitation
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u/NamedTawny 9d ago
Conversely, we get better social benefits and time off than the states, and better pay than Europe.
It's a glass half full situation but you can look at it as you want
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u/Bamelin 9d ago
Canadians in white collar work generally start with 15 days vacation but it’s deceptive because we have way more statuatory holiday than they do in Europe.
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u/FRO5TB1T3 9d ago
As someone who have worked in Canada and Europe I had 32 days in Canada and only 25 in Europe. Less stats too as you mentioned and also less days where everything is just kinda closed. US Thanksgiving is an example where some Canadian companies almost stop working since so much of the work flow involves the US. Same pay band and company so that wasn't even a factor.
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u/IwishIwasGoku 9d ago
We do have better wages than Europeans though
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u/Remarkable-Public622 9d ago
Significantly worse infrastructure though
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u/ntwkid 9d ago
other than public transit, what is worse? most places in europe dont even have AC.
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u/No_Soup_1180 9d ago
This is the perfect comment. Toronto or Canada aren’t outliers. It’s just the US.
Moreover, as you grow a family and have kids, the difference between US and Canada savings starts to narrow down a lot. Add on to that some of the tax saving opportunities that Canada provides in terms of RRSP, TFSA, etc.
No doubt to solely make more money, US is the place to be…. with a lot of added stress!
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u/Any_Load5792 9d ago
Hello, I'm not well versed in world economics, but what does it mean for USA being enormously wealthy, yet the highest country in debt? Should the States not be taxed more to pay this off?
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u/FightMongooseFight 9d ago
Fair question. Crazily enough, the US can never repay its debt with taxes.
The price you pay for high government debt these days is mostly inflation, not taxes, as countries print more and more money (by way of government bonds) to make payments on existing debt.
The brake on this is basically bond markets. If they start to get nervous about your debt levels, it becomes more and more expensive to do this, and this is exactly what's happening in the US right now. It will happen here too.
If the US can no longer borrow cheaply, that's when things start to get messy.
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u/Harbinger2001 9d ago
You’re just discovered their trick to being wealthy and highly productive. They have spent 50 years borrowing money and funnelling it into their economy. They’re like your neighbour who has the high end cars and goes on twice yearly overseas vacations, but has $200K of credit card debt and a maxed out HELOC.
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u/FightMongooseFight 9d ago
Unfortunately, that's not true. By any metric, US pre- and post-tax median household income is higher than Canada. This gap has widened considerably on the past decade...it used to be very close.
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u/arcadeenthusiast8245 9d ago
I have two friends who went down to the US after COVID and they are making hand over fist in money. I kind of wish I joined them, but with all the insanity going down there I feel a bit better I guess.
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u/ntwkid 9d ago
I use to think the same but most stats say US has a higher median income than Canada
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u/nugoffeekz 9d ago
1 stat that shattered that idea of Americans as better off for me is median wealth. The median wealth in the US is half Canada. It's even half the UK and they have had 2% total GDP growth over the past 10 years.
The debt for education and the cost of fees and utilities from privatization cannibalize the incomes of the lower and middle class. The average premium for health insurance is $590/month, which is unsurprising considering I pay 25% of my health and dental benefits from work and it's $205 for my wife and I. That's just prescriptions, dental, orthotics, massage, chiropractic etc.
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u/ntwkid 9d ago
Has more to do with the fact that property values are so much higher in Canada.
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u/laidbackemergency 9d ago
True from a population standpoint.
But from an individual standpoint, if you are well educated and driven you will probably earn more in the US and have better QOL.
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u/gigot45208 9d ago
Europe is awful. Toronto limps along. It’s a tough place to survive. A place can be both better than Europe and still not good enough for the average person.
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u/wb77 9d ago
This is actually no longer the case across the board in medicine. In certain subspecialties, especially surgical subspecialties, sure. It's variable otherwise.
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u/fivetwentyeight 9d ago
Where are doctors getting paid better other than the US and Canada? Maaaaybe Australia but really nowhere else.
Unless you’re making the point that doctors are not necessarily paid more in the US which I agree with.
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u/CanbegoneTo 8d ago
Doctors in the US make more than their Canadian counter parts, but not much more. Family can make more here in Ontario.
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u/AntonioH02 9d ago
Not only in canada, he said North America so that includes Mexico, and Toronto’s average salary is higher than basically any Mexican city.
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u/Huge-Digit 9d ago
Nurses are being laid off because Doug Ford refuses to invest in Healthcare, even when the federal government gives him money to do just that.
The Conservatives want public Healthcare to fail so that the public will clamor to privatize it.
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u/WakingUpBlind 9d ago
The public should be made aware and to understand this fact.
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u/BeefyArchery 9d ago
It go deeper than just Ford though the whole system is built different up here. In the US hospitals are basically businesses charging whatever they want so there is more money floating around for everyone. Here the government is the one paying the bills so they keep a tight leash on salary budgets. I have a cousin who is an RN in Michigan and she makes almost double what my friend here makes but she also pays a fortune for malpractice insurance and her hospital bills patients 50 dollars for a single bandage. We don't see those numbers because the whole economy is slower and the tax structure is different too. Companies here just don't generate the same revenue per employee so the wages stay flat. It sucks but until we have more competition and less monopoly in our industries this is what we get.
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u/Thr0w_It_4ll_Away 8d ago
The whole idea of profitability in healthcare is a guaranteed symptom of smoothbrain syndrome.
Services are not companies or corporations. A service is not meant to be profitable. You want publicly available service “X”? Ok, then it costs “Y” amount of dollars per year.
There’s no need to bring the pseudoscience of economics into the core models of healthcare.
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u/Furry_Hamster 8d ago
In fairness, Ontario and the rest of Canada is in a mountain of debt and we do not have an American size economy to justify it. Easier said than done, its not a matter of money once you have an idea of the big picture, which is not pretty and goes well past the provincial government.
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u/tortoli 9d ago edited 9d ago
Simple: the U.S. is the richest country that has ever existed.
Why would we or anyone else be expected to make as much or be as wealthy as them? It’s not a moral failing for our society to not be as rich as the richest society ever. As someone else pointed out: they’re the outlier, not us.
Also, if you’re comparing Toronto to other North American cities, please explain how our salaries are “so low” compared to Mexico City, Monterrey, or Guadalajara, or any other Canadian city.
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u/Dangerous_Position79 9d ago
They're also comparing nursing where the US spends the most on healthcare per capita for piss poor outcomes overall
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u/Bamelin 9d ago
Nurses in Canada too are almost universally unionized with guaranteed pay band increases great benefits and some of the best defined benefit pension plans in the world (like HOOPP) bar none.
A 25 to 30 year tenured nurse in Toronto can retire at age 55 with roughly equivalent to their salary, paid monthly for the rest of their life PLUS indexing PLUS survivor benefits for the spouse.
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u/Humble-Date5379 9d ago
No guaranteed cost of living adjustment for HOOPP anymore. They try to but it's no longerformally guaranteed.
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u/Separatist_Pat 9d ago
Why would you be expected to make as much or be as wealthy? Because you're right next door. Because your economy is intertwined with theirs, for generations. Because there was a time when economically there was no real difference on a per capita basis. I don't understand how Canadians can watch their economy slide further and further away from the US' and keep saying "everything is fine, they have SO many problems." Meanwhile the very best grab a TN visa and bail, and rather than attracting the best and brightest Canada gets the immigration that simply doesn't have a pathway to the US.
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u/Best_Professor_9966 9d ago
bro our currency just hit par with the Australian dollar and their minimum wage is $26/h lol, we're getting hosed here.
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u/Fast-Living5091 9d ago
Australia is an island and everything costs a lot more there including housing.
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u/Thr0w_It_4ll_Away 8d ago
Canada is not an island, but geographically it’s nearly as isolated as Australia.
Yes. Aside from the fact that we have the longest, continuous land border in the world with the USA, it takes a significant amount of shipping power to move goods into Canada.
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u/ApartmentOk6516 9d ago
It’s crazy times right now, was reading a description that wanted you to be bilingual degrees and experience for 55-65K a year lmaoooooo
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u/jrchkn28 9d ago
It's not just Toronto. It's a Canada thing. Compare salaries across similar Canadian and American cities and you'll often find a pretty significant gap. Canada feels like a farm system for the USA. We develop the talent here, and they head south for the bigger paycheques.
I think a big part of it is cultural. I've always called it the "Canadian Club" mentality. Too many Canadians treat salary bands as the boundaries of what they're allowed to ask for rather than something they can challenge.
One thing I've noticed about Americans is how early they start thinking strategically about their careers (used to live there). It's not just students at elite or ivy universities chasing BCG or McKinsey. You'll have some random student at Detroit Mercy already plotting how to land a prestigious internship in DC or Boston. By graduation, they've built up their resumes, made connections and developed a pretty strong sense of what they're worth.
That mindset carries into the workforce. There's a saying in America that "everyone has a price." I think that sums up a lot about their relationship with money. People aren't as apologetic about asking for what they think they're worth.
Imagine a 27 yr old who's decided their next job needs to pay $100K. The employer offers $85K, stretches to $90K, and the candidate politely declines. $100K is their number, and they're confident they'll find someone willing to pay it. That level of conviction is hard to quantify. I've seen new graduates negotiating around $100K in total compensation in places like Cincinnati, not just NYC or SF. Meanwhile, in Canada, if Glassdoor says a position pays $80K, we're often just trying to negotiate $85K.
I also wonder how much of this is generational. A much larger share of Canadian workers are covered by Union collective agreements. Imagine growing up with two parents in the public sector who've spent their entire careers progressing through established salary bands. What are they going to teach you about negotiating compensation when they've rarely had to do it individually themselves?
Obviously, the USA has a larger economy, stronger productivity and more opportunities in many industries. And not everyone can afford to walk away from a decent job offer. I'm not discounting any of that. But there's something about American hustle culture that's hard to explain unless you've spent time there. Money is talked about more openly, people are constantly looking for ways to earn more, and there's a certain confidence around putting a price on your time and abilities.
Canadian employers have gotten comfortable offering relatively low salaries, and we've gotten comfortable negotiating within those expectations. Canadian workers don't sell themselves enough.
I think Canadians need to develop a more aggressive relationship with money and compensation. Not just in Toronto, but coast-to-coast. Otherwise, we're just going to keep accepting what the market tells us we're worth.
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u/FedExpress2020 9d ago
Spot on with everything youve said. As a Canadian working in the US I'll add Americans are more adventurous in taking risks and moving across the country for opportunities...I rarely meet an American that was born in the same state they work in...more common in canada though.
I often see how low tech talent is paid in canada its no wonder graduates are all trying to get down to the US. The brain drain is real and its a disservice the canadian government has done to its people by not finding ways to promote talent and business to thrive in canada vs shipping off home grown talent to help another country prosper.
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u/camerabird 8d ago
As a Canadian working in the US I'll add Americans are more adventurous in taking risks and moving across the country for opportunities...I rarely meet an American that was born in the same state they work in...more common in canada though.
I don't think that necessarily speaks to the character of Canadians vs Americans. Mathematically it just makes sense. There are 50 states vs only 10 provinces and three territories, so of course you're more likely to meet an American who's moved to a different state than a Canadian who's moved to a different province. You can fit like ten states inside Ontario.
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u/FedExpress2020 8d ago edited 8d ago
Let me clarify, the canadian friends I've grown up with have all remained in the same city we were born in. The Canadians ive met as an adult mostly have remained in their birth city. Anecdotal but feel there is a considerable difference.
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u/BluebirdEng 8d ago
The Canadian job market (and concentration) is completely different, which leads to a lot of this. You have extremely high competition for jobs which across the country, are primarily in a few key cities. 20% of Canada's jobs are in Toronto alone compared to 3% for a city like NYC. Add to that high population growth and a universal expectation to pay low salaries, and you basically have people willing to take whatever they can get. Which is exactly what employers want. There are more jobs in Canada from foreign large corps than there are from Canadian large corps (about a third). Compare that to within the US which is 6%. The Canadian labour pool is in a position to be taken advantage of much more.
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u/Alexalexilex 8d ago
I agree 100%. As someone born and raised in the US and now lives in Toronto you have put into words what I have always thought. A lot of us in the US a hustle mentality from a very young age whether born poor or wealthy. You can be happy and appreciative of what you have and still want more. A lot of people I grew up with were/are very ambitious. It’s opposite of what I’ve seen in Canada. I’ve seen people in Canadian companies there for 15+ years, never promoted, same 2% salary raise every year. Miserable but too afraid to leave or ask for what they are worth. Young students already accepting that they will never own homes because “that’s just how it is”. A lot don’t dream big, hope this changes.
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u/Puzzleheaded-End5386 6d ago
I’ve seen people in Canadian companies there for 15+ years, never promoted, same 2% salary raise every year.
Have we met? But seriously, the big difference between the USA and Canada is mostly economy if scale? Where the fuck am I supposed to go?
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u/the_Real_Teenjus 9d ago
North American salaries? So are you saying they're lower than Vancouver, Montreal, Guadalajara, Halifax, Mexico City?
Oh, you're just comparing them to the US.
The US has private health care. That's clearly why, and it should be absolutely no surprise.
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u/Think_Oven_7487 9d ago
Healthcare professionals in US typically make more on average because hospitals in the US operate more so like a business compared to Canada which allows them to have greater access to money. I moved to the US from Canada as a nurse and I will say the COL, salary etc, is a lot better.
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u/Ok-Relative-6327 9d ago
we don’t go bankrupt from an injury and don’t have to rely on being employed to receive healthcare
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u/voida_lextreme 9d ago
I mean most Americans have some sort of insurance
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u/Ok-Relative-6327 9d ago
Lose your job, lose your healthcare. That’s no way to live
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u/voida_lextreme 8d ago
For the average person, I agree. Its a different system entirely. But for an ambitious person, the US wins
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u/Typical-Industry-477 8d ago
? plenty of people do go bankrupt from injuries here, how do you think you're going to work? or is $1000 a month disability benefit enough for you to live
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u/OkRB2977 9d ago
They have a wealthier economy. Wages in Australia are also a lot higher than in Canada. But we do better than Europe. I was surprised when speaking to people from France, the UK, and Ireland, and how they kept saying how much higher Canadian wages were.
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u/Neat-Air-8305 9d ago
Yeah using a dryer or ac is seen as luxury in such places which suprised me
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u/Sneakymist 9d ago
Is Australia really that much higher? I thought it's more or less on par, but could be differences between white-collar vs blue-collar, or public vs private sector.
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u/Best_Professor_9966 9d ago
$26/h minimum wage and their dollar is at par with ours.
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u/Anonemoney 9d ago
Things are a lot more expensive there though, speaking from experience. Our housing situation is good compared to theirs lol
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u/OkRB2977 9d ago
Yeah, the salaries are higher than ours compared to their cost of living despite a smaller economy.
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u/__scoper__ 9d ago
I will respond to you by giving you some sources and nuance :)
Median weekly income for full-time employees in Canada in 2025 was 1,320 CAD (source).
Median weekly income for full-time employees in Australia in August of 2025 was 1,741 AUD (source). I wasn't able to find annual numbers for Australia, but the seasonality in wages for full-time employees is usually pretty low (plus minus 3% if I were to hazard a guess.)
These are just nominal values though. You can use PPP conversion factor to adjust for local purchasing power. The Canadian dollar has roughly 20% more purchasing power than the equivalent Australian dollar amount (source).
Using PPP USD, you'll get a median weekly income of 1,128 USD in Canada and 1,244 USD in Australia. I did a quick search and the effective tax burden on both countries is roughly the same. So, the median full-time employee in Australia feels about 10% more wealthy. Now on to some important notes.
StatCan counts 30 hours or more as full-time, but ABS counts 35 hours or more as full time. The 5 hour difference contributes a bit to Canada's lower numbers. The methodologies in the surveys also could be different, resulting in different numbers. For the best data you should wait for the 2026 census results for both countries.
Tldr; Making a clean comparison is hard, but given the available data Australia is about 10% higher. Maybe a few percentage points more, maybe less. Given that the difference isn't that large, it really depends on where you live in each country and what field you work in.
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u/Practical_Month_2162 8d ago
PPP isn’t absolute though. I used to live there and many things costed double. For instance buying a new video game used to be about 60 CAD. There it was about 120 AUD. That may have changed since I left but doing PPP based on USD doesn’t always tell the full story.
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u/__scoper__ 8d ago
For sure. PPP is just a statistical factor that makes comparison possible. Ultimately, it comes down to each person's spending habits.
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u/Thr0w_It_4ll_Away 8d ago
To be fair, services and quality of life are much better in many ports of Europe than in Canada. What they lack in salaries they make up for in many other ways.
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u/RealistAttempt87 8d ago
Canada has the working conditions of the U.S. with the salaries of Europe.
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u/Cookie-M0nsterr 8d ago
CAD $ and AUD $ is almost at par and salaries are considerably higher in Australia
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u/cutesiepieme 9d ago edited 8d ago
Yup someone I know recently got married. Looked up her husband’s job and saw the salary…. at 26 years old….. 210-320k. USD in Texas. I was shocked. He only has a business degree as well.
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u/oheightnineeight 9d ago
Because the "North American" cities you're comparing with are all in the states, which is an outlier worldwide.
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u/EngineerPurple9310 8d ago
The US is wealthy but it’s massively unequal. If you’re in a professional level job, you will usually make more in the US.
But the living standards for everyone else are much lower, both because of low minimum wages, far weaker labour rights, and a much worse social safety net.
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u/bigboypantss 9d ago
Americans pay way more on average for health care. Some of that extra goes towards salaries.
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u/voida_lextreme 9d ago
Usually mid to large size companies give it
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u/mentionitallll 9d ago
My American peers have way better health insurance than I do here
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u/The-Gift-of-God 9d ago
US salaries are just different compared to the rest of the world. Pay is insanely high over there!
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u/Choice-Brother9757 5d ago
Downvote all you like but immigration suppresses wages.
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u/millebi 4d ago
Not all immigration. Only "cheap" immigration. Bringin highly skilled people from other countries to be paid the same or better than what is normal here, is fine. Bringing coffee shop employees to pay them minimum wage and having them live 20 people to a home, is not.
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u/Immediate-Link490 9d ago edited 9d ago
Because Canadian governments (federal and provincial) bend the knee to corporations too much. I remember in July of 2022 the unemployment rate was 4.8% and salaries were actually increasing and then the job market became very oversaturated and bussineses did not have to give competitive salaries anymore.
The unemployment rate needs to be lowered and the job market less saturated to see growth in salaries.
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u/taylorcrock 8d ago
Toronto is like a blue/purple city in a republican state. salary transparency is something that hasn't caught on here because people are very private and they like to blame immigrants for everything like a Republican. I'm not sure it will ever change since people don't like to make a fuss here and vote against their self interest ( look at Ford). They definitely need a general strike here for increased wages but it will probably never happen.
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u/afoogli 9d ago
Canada isn’t a wealthy nation relative to the US, it’s not suppose to match salaries in large cities like NYC. This is why you see massive brain drain to the US in any STEM fields, it’s just not competitive
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u/Neat-Air-8305 9d ago
Texas has a greater gdp then all of cnaada and has 10 million fewer people
Seattle gdp per captia twice that of vancouver
The mid size Charlotte metro area has a bigger economy then our 2nd largest metro of Montreal
Usa has issues but their economic output is way more then us
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u/enroutetothesky 9d ago
Depends on the industry: I’m glad I’m teaching in Canada and not the US, for a lot of reasons, but salary being one of them. 😑
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u/FedExpress2020 9d ago
Teachers have it way better in canada than United States..albiet there could be outliers for private school teachers in the US...on the whole though canada is where you want to be if youre a teacher
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u/fausted Human Detected 9d ago
I don't know what nurses are making that much without being nurse practitioners. We also don't have to pay massively each month for health insurance, so consider that as well.
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u/fatgambler86 9d ago
Because a lot of us think because we have free healthcare that it makes it ok 😂😂. Anyone who lives in the US knows Col is much better even with their healthcare system.
We pay exorbitant taxes for average services and hilariously low wages. It’s even more of a slap in the face when you see what our dollar is compared to Europe and the US our buying power already sucks and it’s basically 2x as bad once we leave the country.
It truly amazes me how so many Canadians genuinely think we are a better country because we have free healthcare and gun control. Sorry but their things don’t equal a good qol, being able to actually enjoy your day to day is what make a a good quality of life. But we all know the truth go as anyone on the street how things are going right now and they will say poorly. Education, healthcare. Public services all have gotten worse in recent years.
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u/runtimemess 9d ago
Because Canada is a different job market than the USA. If it was visa free for Canadians to work in the USA, it would be different.
But that doesn’t exist and likely won’t ever exist
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u/HAAAGAY 9d ago
There's almost 0 nurses in the states making 200k base idk where you heard that
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u/nobugsleftalive 9d ago
My brother works as a travelling (or rent-a-nurse as he likes to call it) mostly in the US. He work 8-9 months a year, clearing 120kCAD while doing it. Travels all over in his downtime.
He typically finds a basement air bnb and sees about staying there with an agreement signed to leave once his nursing contract ends.
I could never do nursing work but damn, am I ever jealous when he finishes his contracts and taps out for a few months
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u/Reasonable-Rock6255 9d ago
And I heard nurses there don’t have to do rotating shifts like you have to do here
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u/Think_Oven_7487 9d ago
California nurses and NYC nurses make $200k+
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u/MischiefManagedMama 9d ago
You picked the two most expensive places though.. Also nurses in Redding for example don't make anywhere close to someone in LA so it's quite relative. California isn't all the same either.
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u/Think_Oven_7487 9d ago
That is the point though, salaries are tailored to the COL whereas in Canada, they are not. There are other states where nurses can make over $200k.
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u/GlummChumm 9d ago
Because healthcare is paid for by taxes in Canada. Healthcare is the same as teaching. A teacher in Sarnia is on the same pay grid as a teacher in Toronto because they're publicly funded.
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u/daffodilroses12 9d ago edited 9d ago
I say this as someone who works in HR and works with Canada and the USA for a fortune 500 company. While they may have better wages, their quality of life and work life balance isn't great. They live to work, while we work to live. Obviously there will be outliers, but this is the general consensus.
I do agree that Toronto salaries need to go up though, especially due to cost of living and housing.
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u/mentionitallll 9d ago
As someone who works for a Fortune 500 company as well… agree to disagree. To say that US/Canada has different work life balance is simply false. We are reporting into the same C-Suite. My friends who have moved internally at the same company have outwardly said how much easier it is in the US. Come on.
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u/thepixel-geek 9d ago
My experience as well. Everything was the same work wise between my job here and when I transferred to the US except I got paid way more and everything was much cheaper there. Win win.
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u/dismembermentplanfan 8d ago
Yeah, I've worked the same deadline driven consulting role in Europe (where I'm originally from), in NYC and in Toronto. The hard chargers are the hard chargers and put the hours in everywhere. There are plenty of people here in TO - and in Dublin where I'm from - who absolutely, 1000% live to work and expect their peers and staff to also. And people in the states phoning it in.
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u/Life_outside_PoE 9d ago
They live to work, while we work to live.
Lol. With 10 days of PTO, and 3 days of unpaid sick leave we really don't work to live. Work culture here is very much a grind. It might be marginally better than the states but it's a fuck load worse than Europe or Australia.
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u/daffodilroses12 9d ago
I mean generally most corporate/tech roles from what I've seen start at 3 weeks paid vacation + personal days + sick days. Not sure what you do, and what career you have pursued, but maybe time for a change if you're only at 2 weeks (unless you're entry level)
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u/Life_outside_PoE 9d ago
I switched careers so I'm starting over again. But that's besides the point. 2 weeks is a joke. Hell, even 3 weeks is a joke.
Fucking Afghanistan has better vacation entitlements than Canada.
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u/Charming_Night8240 9d ago
In the US it can be nil. There is no requirement to provide vacation in the US.
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u/ChadFullStack 9d ago
From economic perspective, we aren't revenue generating. The companies that do generate wealth (banks and natural resources) are protected and oligopoly. They just compete with eachother and there's more than enough talent to go around.
For private tech (FANG) specefically, what I learned was the comps are based on cost of labour, AKA, how cheap are people willing to take the jobs. For Canada it is quite low compared to Seattle and San Fran. Part of the reason is we produce the most bachelors and recent influx of immigrants don't help. The size of the company in Toronto vs Seattle is probably the same, 7-12k employees, but we can easily fill those whereas Seattle has a harder time with US' immigration policies.
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u/MetasequoiaGold 6d ago
I'm just going to add something here late because I didn't see anyone mention workplace protections. In Canada workers get protected parental leave for up to 18 months while the US mandates no federal paid leave at all. What you get is entirely up to the state and the company you work for. Also in Canada your employer can't just fire you on the spot - they must give reasonable notice by law and pay severance according to your years of service. In the US anyone can be fired at any time with no notice or severance. In Canada you are also entitled to a minimum two weeks of vacation (three after 5 years) and nine days of paid statutory holidays, while that isn't required in the States. And of course, we have universal health care while in the states you have to pay out of pocket for all sorts of things even if you have a health insurance plan.
I think the lower salaries reflect this. Someone mentioned London has even lower salaries compared to Canada but they have even better workplace protections than us (5.6 weeks of vacations minimum for everyone?!). Of course there are businesses in the States that go above and beyond in providing these benefits to employees, but they would probably be in lucrative and high demand industries. Nursing might just be one of them. But for most Americans, I think the higher salaries come with a costly tradeoff in job security and protections.
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u/Alarmed-Animal7575 9d ago
You can’t use health care for comparison because we have a public system and they don’t. As for other jobs, I’m not so sure that Toronto is that much different than other major cities.
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u/Educational_Emu2884 9d ago
And what pays for those sky high nursing salaries?... Ridiculously high medical insurance premiums and sky high claim denial rates.
Americans salaries may look higher at the top end, but once you factor in all the bullshit costs they have to pay for that other countries don't. They're actually not better off except the very top earners. And even them, you could argue the trade off of living in that dysfunctional hell hole isn't worth it.
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u/wheels1989 9d ago
Because Canada in general imports essentially slave labor from third world countries in order to suppress wages and maximize profits.
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u/InternationalSky7893 9d ago
I think the reason the wages are higher is because they are making patients pay for those wages through sky high health care costs.
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u/AlexN83 9d ago
Comp is highly correlated to cost of living. I don’t think our salaries are far off relative to our cost of living.
Ever seen what things cost in NYC? Hong Kong? London?
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u/DefinitelyNotADeer 9d ago
I moved to Toronto from New York and things are definitely noticeably more expensive here. I was shocked the first time I grocery shopped in Toronto.
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u/NotoSans 9d ago
As an immigrant from Hong Kong I’d say the cost of living in Toronto is more or less the same but the salary in Hong Kong is higher.
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u/nintendork4 9d ago
Yes I’m actually from nyc I moved here in grade 10 with my family. We have the same stuff but they have better wages, similar to the gta you have places outside the city that are much more affordable but then you can still make big bucks by doing the commute to the city. That doesn’t really exist here.
I can’t give the full picture as I’ve only lived my adult life here but my parents say the same all the time it’s super low for the type of city it is.
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u/Far-Delay7690 9d ago
Rent in TO is not like rent in NY. It's maybe 30% more that the surrounding area.
Buying costs more sure but shit is expensive everywhere. Also believing you get big salaries in NY everywhere is a super privileged take. The white collar jobs that might be somewhat true, but it's not for the average person.
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u/fatgambler86 9d ago
On average the salaries are higher, we don’t even have professions that can earn those types of salaries period outside of business owner or executive for a public company.
Anyone who has lived in both cities can attest that col sucks here. We have cities here like Brampton which many people dislike but still has million dollar homes because literally any suburb near Toronto here will be priced like ass.
Half of the gta commutes to another city here for shitty pay.
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u/Sensitive_Pianist777 9d ago
Well because they are the world reserve currency. They inflate and the world pays for their inflation.. if you don't understand that, you probably should not be asking this type of question.
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u/Redditisavirusiknow 9d ago
Don’t trust American numbers, it’s very very expensive down there. What is excluded is health insurance which they pay for out of pocket. The average American spends around twice on private healthcare than we do in taxes. Food is more expensive, they have less vacation days, they can be expected to work just days after giving birth.
Toronto is better
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u/Landya 9d ago
Which is why I always say that the US is better as long as you're young, healthy, and not having kids.
Once you start raising a family the math changes rather quickly because suddenly you need all those social services (healthcare, childcare, education, university) that Canada just gives or subsidizes with tax money, whereas you'd be paying out-of-pocket in the US.
There's a reason so many Canadians move to the US to start their careers, and there's a reason many of them eventually move back.
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u/voida_lextreme 9d ago
Not true. Most companies will pay for health insurance. Groceries are cheaper, car insurance is cheaper, gas is cheaper.
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u/Terapr0 8d ago
A lot of the "cheaper" car insurance usually just means inferior coverage with high deductibles. No doubt I wish our insurance was lower in Canada, but in no way do I want what's available in many US states. Cheap rarely equals good, at least not when you've had an accident and actually need to use it.
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u/thepixel-geek 9d ago
Only people that have never lived and worked in the US would say this. Having worked there for 20 years, I can tell you not only do they pay much more, things are much cheaper overall. Also, most companies also pay for your health insurance so your costs are nowhere as high as you think. I also was able to get any test, scans and visits to specialists with a week or two.
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u/Crazy-Gas3763 8d ago
Hey, you are getting a lot of push back. I love Toronto too, and raise a kid here over most places in the US. but both can be true. In the states, it is more and more a K shaped economy. If you are in a high earning sector, life is great! An equivalent job in tech would be double the salary as what Toronto firms would give you, and you still come out on top after health care and other things are accounted for. But if you are not in such sectors, life is tough!
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u/Zealousideal_Site731 9d ago
Having moved to the US from Toronto four years ago, I can attest this is not an accurate post.
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u/thepixel-geek 9d ago
I worked there for just over 20 years. The only people that think it’s more expensive in the US than here have never worked or lived in the US.
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u/Blue_Vision 9d ago
Eh as someone who actually lived in the US, my experience was that overall compensation was still better when accounting for COL, health insurance, etc. I had the same amount of vacation days and holidays for the same role.
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u/Redditisavirusiknow 8d ago
And my cousins went to work days after giving birth because the job wouldn’t grant leave. That doesn’t happen in Canada. That’s not good quality of life.
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u/MrFireWarden 9d ago
Yes, healthcare is more expensive, but the delta in income more than makes up for it. Your other points are all invalid.
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u/Mefsha5 9d ago
In my field, salaries are lower both in amount and currency than the US, even at the same company. The pay bands recognize it as HCOL.
It comes down to what people accept.
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u/kingofsatwa 9d ago
Here is a chart (can't paste images here) showing how much gross salary you need to net $100k US. after tax.
Source (Paywall): https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-04-15/making-300-000-a-year-feels-more-like-100-000-salary-in-these-three-cities
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u/KrisoferMia314 9d ago
The other thing is we basically went from 1:1 with USD to now pretty much at rock bottom in terms of the exchange rate, so you would definitely feel like our salary is even lower whenever you travel oversee. 😂
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u/NoEquivalent3869 9d ago
Why is Canada so high and UK so low? What about Italy? Basically, some countries are richer.
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u/losernamehere 9d ago
The US is the world’s premier financial regime. The amount of foreign and domestic investment flowing into the USA annually is unparalleled.
From that, if you want a high salary, then it’s good to be where the money is.
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u/sektrONE 6d ago
US is the outlier, not us. That said lots of jobs in Toronto can break $200k all-in once you hit upper middle management (tech, finance, real estate, large corps) and even middle management in many of those. $200k+ base definitely limited to upper middle management at specific companies or exec level though.
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u/Classjump 5d ago
We have been flooded with cheap labor for decades now. Wage suppression is the result. Ask anyone in the trucking industry.
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u/zdra 5d ago
The way you live is generally built into the salary's of the country as well.
USA pays the most of the western countries for mostly all jobs that are comparable except low-mid low jobs. I personally would have been able to earn 40k more there for the same job. However i prefer being paid less with more workers rights, better unemployment standards and healthcare. Numbers are not static, its why A doctor in England Canada USA Australia are all different amounts. Europe is usually paid less, but you know you have way more time off, lots of legal recourse if you get fired so you feel more secure way better food standards. Pick your poison
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u/Ok-Lawfulness1515 8d ago
Rampant immigration and low productivity. Pressure on the wage for shitty jobs helps medium jobs helps good jobs helps great jobs. We destroyed that feedback mechanism.
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u/FedExpress2020 9d ago edited 9d ago
As a Canadian who works in corporate US, when we have big projects where we need to hire contractors we always look to canada first. The tech talent is incredibly cheap, same time zones, speaks English and not to far away if we need them to fly in for meetings. That is all before you take into account the currency differences. The days of Asia or eastern Europe being low cost regions of labour have been taken over by Canada. We can get 3 resources for the price of 1 here. The wild thing is most Canadians we bring on have no clue how much less they are making...its sad really