Alberta

As noted in the previous GeoCurrents post, Alberta is Canada’s most prosperous and economically productive province. But it does have, as might be expected, by the country’s highest cost of living. Although living costs in Alberta are above the national average, they are below those of Ontario, Canada’s most populous province. The major factor is the cost of housing. As can be seen on the map posted below, the average price of a house in both Ontario and British Columbia far exceeds Alberta’s figure, owing largely to expensive real estate of Toronto and Vancouver.

But despite its prominent economic position in Canada, Alberta ranks in a middling level when compared with the states of the U.S. Although the United States and Canada have historically maintained rough economic parity, their relative positions began to diverge in the second decade of the twenty-first century, as can be seen in the graphs posted below. As the following maps show, per capita GDP and median income levels are now substantially lower across the provinces of Canada than across the states of the United States. Canada’s Atlantic provinces occupy a particularly low position, below those of the poorest U.S. states. But it is also true that the cost of living is, on average, higher in the United States than in Canada, owing in part to elevated medical costs in the U.S.

(Note: In making the maps posted below, I used ChatGPT to convert Canadian dollars to U.S. dollars, which might have resulted in erroneous figures.)