A new survey has found that two in five (40%) of Canadians don't expect to escape debt in their lifetime.
The Manulife Bank of Canada (TSX:MFC) debt survey also found that 94% of respondents agree that the average household has too much debt while 67% of those in debt assume everyone else is as well.
Canada’s spending-to-income ratio is trending negatively as 45% of Canadians said their spending is increasing faster than their income. That's up from 33% who said the same this past spring. Just 12% of survey respondents noted that their income is growing faster than their spending.
And, the survey found that more than half (55%) of Canadians reported considerable non-mortgage debt, up nine percentage points from a spring survey. In all, 60% say they have credit cards carrying a balance, up from 48% in the spring. According to credit monitoring service Equifax, total debt per Canadian consumer now stands at $71,979, up from about $57,000 five years ago.
The online poll by Manulife Bank was conducted September 20 to 26 and surveyed 2,001 Canadians in all provinces aged 20 to 69 with household income of more than $40,000. Internet-based surveys cannot be assigned a margin of error because online polls are not considered random samples.
