Living in Toronto is expensive. Anyone who has ever dared to try to make it in the 6ix has come to this conclusion, and now we have cold, hard facts to back it up. A new report on the cost of living in Toronto says you need to make well over $100,000 a year to support an average, middle-class lifestyle in 2020.
This figure was based on a calculation of several factors, according to the report by Fong and Partners Inc.
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These include things like your groceries, car payments, mortgage, gas, property taxes, and utilities.
Victor Fong of Fong and Partners told Narcity that, with all these costs combined, the average single person with no children would need to make an annual gross income of $135,000 to be considered middle class in Toronto.
This annual income would allow you to pay for a freehold townhouse in Toronto. According to Fong's report, a property like this costs $1,042,806 on average as of June 2020.
Fong tells Narcity that you'd need an "annual after-tax income of $91,844 to maintain a middle-class lifestyle in Toronto."
Here's a breakdown of the costs per year.
Courtesy of Fong and Partner Inc.
It's clear that, in Toronto, being middle class requires a lot of spending. Vacations alone add up to $5,000, which comes close to what you'll be spending on property taxes and utilities every year.
Not to mention your retirement savings, which should apparently be an investment of $10,322 per year.
“This middle-class lifestyle was common and available to many people 30 years ago. Today it’s only available to the top 10% economic class,” reads an excerpt from the report.
Back in 2019, Toronto house prices soared so dramatically that the jump was almost as much as what households make in an entire year.
Last year, the median cost of a home went up by a whopping 8% to $720,000. This was an increase of $55,000 from the previous year. By comparison, the median after-tax income of an average household in Toronto is $58,264.