Nearly 40 percent of Canadians are borrowing money to cover the rising costs of daily expenses like groceries and rent, says new federal research.
“The percentage of Canadians who borrow money to cover daily expenses increased from 26% in 2020 to 38% in September 2022,” wrote the Financial Consumer Agency of Canada in a report published in November 2022, as first reported by Blacklock’s Reporter.
The federal agency, which enforces consumer protection legislation, added in its report that the “proportion of Canadians who used online lenders or payday loans more than tripled from August 2020 to September 2022,” increasing from under 1.5 percent to over 4.5 percent.
The report, titled “Consumer Vulnerability: Evidence from the Monthly COVID-19 Financial Well-being Survey,” also said that the percentage of Canadians who are dipping into their savings to keep up with rising costs rose from 33 percent in 2020 to 48 percent in June 2022….