With headlines about Canadian household debt hitting record levels and dire warnings from top policy-makers such as Bank of Canada governor Stephen Poloz, Canadians may think household debt is out of control.
The concerns, however, often fail to properly account for the other side of the balance sheet.
Yes, Canadian households have taken on more debt. But they’ve used this debt to finance assets – real estate and retirement savings, for example – that grow over time, causing their net worth to swell, also to unprecedented levels.
By the end of last year, household debt eclipsed $2 trillion, up from $357 billion in 1990. Two-thirds of this debt is for mortgages; the remaining third is split between consumer credit (29 per cent) and other loans (five per cent).
Despite the preoccupation with overheated real estate markets, the mortgage share of total household debt has remained stable. The $2-trillion-plus in household debt now equals approximately 170 per cent of household disposable income compared to just 90 per cent in 1990.
So does this mean Canadians are being irresponsible with debt?
No.
The growth in household debt has partly been a rational response to plummeting interest rates. The Bank of Canada rate has fallen dramatically from nearly 13 per cent in 1990 to 0.75 per cent at the end of last year. Not surprisingly, as the cost of borrowing has dropped, Canadian households have borrowed more.
The drop in interest rates has been so significant that the interest burden of servicing debt has declined as a share of income, despite growing household debt. Today, interest payments on household debt consume six per cent of disposable income compared to almost 11 per cent in 1990.
That brings us back to the other side of the balance sheet – household assets. While household debt has grown substantially over the past 26 years, households are borrowing to invest in appreciating assets such as real estate, pensions, financial investments and businesses. Canadian household assets rose from $2.2 trillion in 1990 to $12.3 trillion in 2016.
The significant investment in assets has meant that household net worth (total assets minus liabilities) surged from $1.8 trillion to $10.3 trillion, a record level, during the same 26-year period. As a share of gross domestic product, household net worth rose from 265 per cent to 498 per cent.
While government policy-makers fret over household debt, the irony is that unlike government, household net worth is positive and increasing over time.
Debt is a tool and the concern should only be about debt that’s not manageable given the economic circumstances of a given household. The greatest risks to management of household debt are:
- economic shocks that lead to job losses, which make it harder for people to service their debt;
- increases in interest rates that raise debt-servicing costs.
Even with any small forecast increases, interest rates remain low and the Canadian economy has performed adequately in terms of employment, with relatively low jobless rates.
While these macroeconomic factors are of concern, they should also be kept in context. Despite record high levels of household debt, there are also record high levels of net worth.
Livio Di Matteo is senior fellow at the Fraser Institute and author of the study Household Debt and Government Debt in Canada.
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