| I was born and raised in Canada. I, like many of my peers at the "top" Canadian universities, focused solely on recruiting to the "top" American companies that came to campus to recruit[1]. I would describe Canada as generally being tightly range bound. One of the most striking things about coming to the U.S. is the large class of what I would consider to be the working poor. People who are truly just doing enough to get by and are one mishap away from financial ruin. Of course, having lived in SF and NYC this is constantly juxtaposed with extreme, incomprehensible wealth that is equally striking. In Canada, in my experience, the vast majority are still in the middle with few outliers in either direction. Earning potentials are significantly capped - even in areas like banking and tech - and social programs make it quite difficult for there to be the kind of working poor I observe daily here. I've often thought to myself that I couldn't imagine what it would be like to make $50k in the United States (even living in a low CoL area). From health insurance, to private school costs (given the quality of many public schools), to college costs. It would seem an intense burden. Certainly if I had offers that paid between $50-100k in both the U.S. and Canada I would move back to Canada. I would feel I have no other choice. With all that said, I make many multiples - especially after tax - of what I could ever have hoped to make in Canada. I have been inside institutions with the kind of institutional framework with no comparable in Canada (from a human capital and technological perspective). Opportunities have been afforded to me here that either do not exist or are analogous, but significantly inferior in Canada. The United States has given me a wonderful life and I'll always be grateful for the opportunity to be here. I make no claim as to which economic system is better. I would just observe that Canada is a much easier place to live, but in my experience lacking in the kind of dynamism you see in the United States (that translates into personal opportunities, income, and fulfilment). [1] Top is obviously somewhat subjective. McGill, U of T, UBC, and U of Waterloo would be the "top" schools. The "top" jobs are FANG or FANG-adjacent, investment banks or hedge funds (GS, JPM, Citadel, etc.), and consulting firms (McKinsey, BCG, Bain). |
I wonder how much of this perception comes from the fact that people who have lived in both Canada and the U.S. probably lived in places like SF and NYC, and those American cities are particularly dysfunctional. And that dysfunctionality is particularly visible because of differences in housing patterns. (Toronto versus Chicago is a good example. The two cities are the same size, but Toronto's metro area has 6.5 million people, while Chicago's has almost 10 million. If housing patterns were similar, Chicago would have another 1.5-2 million middle class people living in the city, lessening the impression of gaping wealth inequality between the city's various neighborhoods.)
The fact is that Canada spends almost exactly the same percentage of GDP on social welfare as the U.S., and slightly less per student on K-12 education. It's hard to imagine that Canada really manages to get a dramatically different safety net for the same money. More likely to me is that U.S. urbanites have little experience with American families in suburban Georgia or Kansas--places where making $50,000 and getting employer-paid health insurance (like most middle class families get), and sending your kids to the perfectly good neighborhood school makes for a quite comfortable life.