Unlike the other periods though, the decline in per-person GDP since the second quarter of 2019 briefly recovered in the second quarter of 2022, but then continued lower and is now below that of the 2019 figure.
Using per-person GDP is often considered to be a more accurate measure of an economy because it takes into consideration fluctuations in population size. Significant increases in population, often driven by immigration, having the potential to negatively impact the stats if per-person incomes do not also increase.
A recent report from Statistics Canada found that millions of Canadians have a lower quality of life with financial strain among the main reasons.
Still declining
But there’s more bad news highlighted by the authors of the report, titled Changes in Per-Person GDP (Income): 1985 to 2023, because they say that living standards by the metric used has continued to decline beyond their analysis period, which could lead the current period to become the longest and steepest in history.
“Despite claims to the contrary, living standards are declining in Canada,” said Grady Munro, policy analyst at the Fraser Institute and co-author of the report.