Financial Wellbeing Index Canada: Fall 2021
January 19, 2022
Fall 2021 highlights
Key insight: Almost half of Canadians indicate that they would or might be embarrassed to seek financial advice
Following two periods of improvement, the financial wellbeing of Canadians declined in the Fall of 2021 to more than two points below the pre-2020 benchmark
- Overall scores have declined across all areas of financial wellbeing apart from the impact of finances on productivity which had a modest improvement.
- All provinces have financial wellbeing scores below benchmark; Manitoba has the most favourable score at -0.1 while the Maritimes has the lowest score (-6.7).
- More Canadians reported a worsening financial situation in Fall 2021 compared to the previous period.
- For the fourth consecutive period, full-time post-secondary students have the lowest financial wellbeing score (-13.8) by a significant margin.
Lower financial wellbeing is correlated with a negative impact on productivity
- The financial situation of younger people, parents, lower income earners, women, managers, and people working for small employers has a greater impact on their productivity than those in other groups.
- Since the launch of the FWI, people working for organizations with 51-100 employees have had poorer financial wellbeing, by a large margin, than larger and smaller employer groups.
More than two in five Canadians would pay off their credit card debt if they had the money
- 43% would pay off credit card debt and this group has among the lowest financial wellbeing scores.
- 25% would pay off their mortgage.
