Your month in the city: does the pay cover it?

So how is this worked out?

1. Pay: If you pick your work, we take its median wage for the city’s region from the «Wages» file in the Government of Canada open data (Job Bank wages). An hourly wage is multiplied by 37.5 hours a week × 52 weeks ÷ 12 months; a yearly one is divided by 12. That is before tax. Where the region has no published figure, we say so.
2. Without an occupation: We use Statistics Canada’s median employment income for the city ÷ 12. It includes people who work only part of the year, so it is often lower than full-time pay. Where the city has no such figure we ask you to pick your work or type your expected income.
3. If you type your income: We use it as it is, before tax, in every city instead of the median, and work out the tax with the same official tables for each province. If someone else in the home has an income, each person is taxed on their own, never on the total.
4. Tax and payroll deductions: The first thing out of the income. Worked out for one person working, with the official 2026 tables: federal tax, provincial tax, the pension plan (CPP, or QPP in Quebec), Employment Insurance (EI) and, in Quebec, the Parental Insurance Plan (QPIP). The tables are the Canada Revenue Agency’s payroll formulas (T4127) and, for Quebec, the Quebec Ministry of Finance. Tax does not include benefits; government support is tax-free, so it is added after tax on its own line («From government support»).
5. Rent: CMHC average rent. The flat size follows the National Occupancy Standard: at most two people per bedroom, a couple shares a room and children of the same sex share. So: 1 person = studio, 2 = one bedroom, 3 or 4 = two bedrooms, 5 or 6 = three bedrooms. You can change it. The CMHC average covers all tenants, including people who have rented the same flat for years, and a flat let to a new tenant usually costs more. So new listings usually ask more than this figure, and guides may show different numbers. CMHC · 2025 Rental Market Report
6. Basic living: From Statistics Canada’s Market Basket Measure (MBM): food, clothes, phone, internet and other household needs. Shelter and transport are left out so they are not counted twice, and the basket is scaled to your household size with Statistics Canada’s own ratio between family sizes.
7. Gas (if you have a car): By “How much do you drive a month?”: a little 25 litres, usual 50 litres (one tank), a lot 100 litres (our assumption, not an official figure), times the city’s official average price per litre.
8. Car insurance (if you have a car): Pick from the list: «recent estimate for your province» from an insurance comparison site (Instasure, October 2026) for a driver with 15 years licensed and a clean record, which is not an official figure (asked for by the site owner because prices are high now), a nearby amount, or your own figure. Newcomers usually pay more. If you pick nothing, it is not counted and the result says so. Car payments, parking and repairs are not counted.
9. Transit (if you have no car): One adult monthly pass, from the city’s own transit authority website.
10. Children: Children’s food and clothes are in basic living, by household size. Childcare counts only if you type it.
11. Government support: We estimate with the official formulas for the benefit year July 2026 to June 2027: the Canada Child Benefit (CCB) if you give the number of children, the Canada Groceries and Essentials Benefit (CGEB, formerly the GST/HST credit) for everyone by income, and the province’s programs where the official page gives the whole calculation. We use the household income before tax as if it were last year’s family net income, and count two or more adults as a couple (our assumptions). Programs whose page does not give the whole calculation are not added; their names are under the result. Support is added after tax because it is tax-free. The CCB formula on canada.ca
12. Comfortable, manageable or short? This verdict is our own rule of thumb, not an official standard: “Comfortable” when a fifth or more of what comes in after tax (take-home pay with the support) is left, “Manageable” under a fifth, “Does not cover” below zero. The one official benchmark here is CMHC’s: housing is affordable when it costs less than 30% of before-tax household income. Every percentage we print in the result uses one base: the month’s income before tax with the government support. CMHC’s definition
13. Not counted: Power, heating and water if not in the rent, car insurance and payments, childcare, health costs, debts and instalments, money sent to family, and any other income in the home that you did not type above. So the last number is only an estimate. Please do not lean on it too much; check your budget with your own numbers.