Victoria is also the most expensive city in Canada, which - reading the accounts of low pay in this thread, make it seem out of reach for most Canadians.
Yes. It’s brutal. I earn a somewhat low income by SV standards, but my income (excluding my wife’s) is around 3.5x the city’s household income average. I recently bought a house for $1M and the mortgage eats 40% of my income. This was the low end of the market for a family home.
I wonder almost every day what ~70% of the city is doing to survive. We are very diligent about spending and while we’re comfortable, we still need to be careful. That’s insane. The situation is bad. Our local subreddit is loaded with people who are struggling, leaving, venting, etc. over money and work. It’s the worst I’ve ever seen it.
Also weird: Victoria is the most expensive by many measures, yet remote work salary ranges never consider Victoria an expensive city. Vancouver, Toronto, they’re always on the list of course. But never Victoria. I had to turn down a role recently because it was around $40k per year lower than I’d earn in Vancouver, and I found their inflexibility and unreasonable stance on the matter incredibly concerning. I would pay almost exactly the same amount to live in Vancouver, but their calculator disagreed.
