Cost of living squeeze: Is it getting better in North America?

00:00:00:02 – 00:00:03:14
Claire
Hello and welcome back to The 10 – Minute Take. I’m your host Clare fan

00:00:03:14 – 00:00:05:06
Carrie
and I’m Carrie Freestone.

00:00:05:08 – 00:00:16:17
Claire
Carrie is so nice to be with you in person again in Toronto. Prices in Toronto these days, and I’m not complaining yet. They’re still pretty unaffordable for Canada, but I’m assuming it’s better than New York City.

00:00:16:18 – 00:00:28:14
Carrie
Well, I can say that looking for an apartment in New York was a little bit of a jarring experience. But I’m not going to talk about the US rental market today. However, we are going to talk about cost of living. So this is the perfect segue into the episode.

00:00:28:15 – 00:00:36:00
Claire
Yeah, exactly. I mean, it’s a very relevant topic for everyone, for obvious reasons. And we’re breaking it down today.

00:00:36:01 – 00:00:54:13
Carrie
We’re going to start by talking about how price growth has evolved since the pandemic in both the US and Canada. We’re also going to talk about how consumers have fared in both countries in response to higher gas prices. And lastly, we’ll break down for you what central banks are expected to do or to not do with these higher prices.

00:00:54:15 – 00:00:57:14
Claire
All right. There’s a lot to get through. Let’s get right to it.

00:00:57:15 – 00:01:05:08
Carrie
Okay, Claire. So I think it makes sense for us to start by giving our listeners a debrief on, you know, how have cost of living challenges evolved in Canada over the last few years?

00:01:05:09 – 00:01:36:21
Claire
I’ll start by probably just say that there really isn’t a uniform answer to that question because, again, each one of us, we all live a bit differently and we all earn different levels of income. With that being said, there were some common themes, especially if we just were to look at, for example, the rate of growth in the consumer price index over the past six years and averaging 3.5% each year, which is nearly double the pace of where it was during the prior six year period of 1.8%.

00:01:36:21 – 00:01:56:04
Claire
And then if we were to look at things that are considered essential to these are food and shelter, they’re both growing where they have been growing at an annual rate on average of 5%, which is, of course, an even bigger acceleration from where they were pre-pandemic. So again, some common themes which have been, of course, very challenging for households area.

00:01:56:04 – 00:01:59:15
Claire
I’m assuming a lot of these challenges are common in the United States as well.

00:01:59:16 – 00:02:17:18
Carrie
Yes, exactly. As you’re you’re running through them. I’m thinking a lot of these themes are similar. And one of the things that stands out to me is that we’re talking a lot about the year-over-year pace of inflation. But also against that backdrop, I think we have to acknowledge that over the past seven years or so, we’ve experienced two periods of exceptionally high inflation since the pandemic.

00:02:17:18 – 00:02:42:04
Carrie
So 2022 to 2024. And now during the Middle East conflict with oil prices spiking, we’re in phase two of high prices. And so it’s really important to acknowledge that not only does the year-over-year print matter, but so too does how households are feeling about price growth over the past seven years. So talking about the year-over-year first, I can tell you that similar to Canada in the US, prices for essentials have risen pretty astronomically.

00:02:42:06 – 00:03:06:07
Carrie
I’m looking at, you know, grocery prices, shelter prices, energy, and also daycare and preschool. And if we wait those according to basket shares, on average, those prices are still up 4.7% year-over-year. Headline inflation is at 3.5%. So where we’re seeing the disinflation is for discretionary items. Now that helps higher income households. But lower and middle income households who have to buy gas, who have to buy food.

00:03:06:07 – 00:03:28:08
Carrie
And that accounts for a greater share of their paycheck. Those are the ones who are struggling. And if you put that into the context of the past seven years, you know, shelter, prices, rents are up 40% relative to pre-pandemic gas prices or energy prices are up 50%. So in many cases, we’re actually seeing that those price growths or those rates of price growth are exceeding wage growth.

00:03:28:09 – 00:03:37:21
Carrie
Average hourly earnings are up 34%. And again, while that’s over the pace of aggregate inflation, which is 30, essentials are growing a lot faster than that.

00:03:37:22 – 00:04:03:00
Claire
Yeah, it’s definitely a very similar backdrop in Canada as well, where we have wage growth pretty much on par with the rate of price growth is about 5% each year. But that, of course, to your point, varies quite a bit depending on where you really land in terms of that income scale. Okay. We’ve gone through some common challenges for households in North America over the past six years.

00:04:03:01 – 00:04:24:17
Claire
This year, of course, with sort of the conflict in the Middle East escalating, we’ve seen global oil prices surge. And as a result, gasoline prices in the United States and Canada have increased quite a bit as well. So not new challenges, some familiar challenges, but nonetheless, how have households in the US been very. So it’s actually.

00:04:24:17 – 00:04:46:14
Carrie
Surprising how well US households have fared. We just got data for retail sales for June, and real retail sales is stripping out. The impact of inflation actually grew at 0.6% month-over-month, which is very strong. And actually looking at growth in real retail sales relative to January, we’re 3%. So that’s pretty strong. Consumers are very clearly still spending their money sales.

00:04:46:14 – 00:05:03:12
Carrie
That stood out to me in the data that was very interesting, was looking at consumer credit data for the month of May. We actually saw that consumers work to pay down their credit card balances. And this is at the same time that gas prices are high. Now, one thing I will say is this did coincide with tax refunds that were higher than a year ago.

00:05:03:12 – 00:05:22:21
Carrie
So I think in many cases, the tax refunds helped offset the impact of higher gas prices and allowed households to pay down credit. Now, one thing we did see, though, was that households were saving a lesser share of their take home pay, so we saw a 0.8% decline in the personal savings rate since February. And that is pretty material.

00:05:22:21 – 00:05:35:05
Carrie
So obviously households are pivoting away from saving and instead focusing on paying down debt and continuing to support spending when gas prices are higher. What about in Canada? Were you seeing similar trends, their resilience as well?

00:05:35:08 – 00:06:02:23
Claire
Yeah, absolutely. We’ve seen some fairly similar trends when it comes to how households have been dealing with higher gasoline prices, which is by and large, they haven’t really pull back in terms of spending on other non gas items. Similarly as well, we’ve seen the federal government step in with sort of eliminating or really just suspending temporarily the gas Texas $0.10 per liter, which definitely helped to alleviate some of the pressure there as well.

00:06:03:00 – 00:06:28:18
Claire
A question that I got fairly frequently over the past couple of weeks is that how come gas prices didn’t fall as much? Now that we’ve seen global oil prices moderate to a certain extent? Obviously the path is still very volatile and seen some increases in recent weeks again, and that’s actually a pretty interesting question as well. And that’s because there’s more that goes into what we pay at the pump than just global oil prices.

00:06:28:18 – 00:06:51:08
Claire
So think about it. There’s also a huge amount of sort of the gas prices would account for things like refinery margins, which is considered to be wholesalers on sort of the world distribution chain and retailer margins as well. And on top of that, we have seen Sonali. So blends in the summer are usually pricier than blends in the winter.

00:06:51:08 – 00:07:09:21
Claire
And of course, the exchange rate could be a part of that equation as well. So just to explain for sure. Right now we are seeing a wider than usual gap between gasoline prices, refined products versus crude oil. But later this year we are expecting that will actually start to moderate alongside prices.

00:07:09:22 – 00:07:24:18
Carrie
This person, my last question for you, Clara, which is, you know, we have two challenges at the same time. We have sticky inflation at the same time that consumers have felt increasingly stretched. So what are central banks going to do about it or what are they not going to do about it?

00:07:24:22 – 00:07:44:07
Claire
Yeah, it’s definitely a pretty difficult or challenging environment for central banks to operate in. And we’ve seen this common theme pretty much being communicated with the Bank of Canada or from the Bank of Canada and the Fed as well, which is that they’re caught in this dilemma to support growth in the economy while keeping inflation low and steady.

00:07:44:12 – 00:08:09:04
Claire
And so, from a Bank of Canada’s perspective, they actually do not have an explicit mandate focusing on the economy where the labor market like the Fed does. But that doesn’t mean they aren’t thinking about the economy when they’re making interest rate decisions. In fact, this year has been a really good example. Inflation did rise to above 3% because of higher gasoline prices like we just talked about.

00:08:09:04 – 00:08:31:21
Claire
But the Bank of Canada hasn’t raised interest rates. And that’s because the economy as a starting point, it is starting from a relatively weak spot. Actually, over the past 3 to 4 quarters, pretty much the year it has been stagnating and not really growing. And that, of course, also goes into this consideration about inflation, because a weaker economy by itself means downward inflation pressure.

00:08:31:21 – 00:08:55:23
Claire
So even though the Bank again, does not have an explicit target on the economy, it does, of course, consider the state of economy just within the broader conversation of inflation. And that’s also the reason that we’re really not expecting the bank to be moving anywhere this year. In fact, we think as sort of growth starts to pick up in the second quarter, we’re seeing some really good signs in terms of economic indicators.

00:08:56:00 – 00:09:14:23
Claire
At the same time, core inflation as far as the latest June CPI data was still pretty subdued. That means the Bank of Canada is in a really good spot. It can afford to be patient as inflation is low and the economy starts to rebound to keep the overnight rate at the 225% it currently is throughout the end of this year.

00:09:15:00 – 00:09:50:09
Claire
Now, mind you, we do have some rate hikes assumed or projected for 2027, but that’s entirely contingent on our base case economic projections materializing, which is that we are actually expecting on a per person basis, the economy will continue to improve and on outright basis we’ll see relatively slow but still positive GDP growth and improvements in the labor market and declines in the unemployment rate to such a state, where the central bank will judge that it’s suitable and appropriate for them to start raising interest rate back towards that middle point of the neutral range.

00:09:50:09 – 00:09:51:06
Claire
That’s our forecast.

00:09:51:07 – 00:10:08:11
Carrie
And I’ll see from a Fed perspective, I’m going to reiterate that the difference between the bank of Can and the Fed is that the Fed has an explicit dual mandate. Now, the demand side of the of the mandate is looking pretty solid. I mean, growth is exceptionally strong. On a labor market perspective. You know, the unemployment rate has actually slid down.

00:10:08:11 – 00:10:32:05
Carrie
We were at 4.3. Now we’re at 4.2%. Labor markets remaining exceptionally tight. Hiring is looking pretty robust. And the question for the longest time was whether the Fed could actually afford to be patient because inflation was looking exceptionally strong. Now, the June data was definitely a positive from an inflation perspective. We had a sizable moderation in core inflation, and this was something that we saw across the board.

00:10:32:07 – 00:10:51:18
Carrie
Our diffusion index improved meaningfully. So now only 25% of CPI basket items are reporting price growth at 3% or above. Now I want to emphasize that one month does not make a trend. We’re definitely cautious, but this should be enough to keep the Fed on the sidelines through the July meeting. And at that point, we’re going to remain entirely data dependent.

00:10:51:19 – 00:10:55:03
Claire
And this concludes this week’s episode of The 10 – Minute Take.

00:10:55:03 – 00:11:00:20
Carrie
We hope this episode resonated with you, even though it was mostly just us complaining about the cost of living for ten minutes straight.

00:11:01:00 – 00:11:05:13
Claire
As we always do. Thanks for listening and we’ll catch you again in two weeks.