Household Debt-to-Disposable Income Ratio Decreases in Q3 According to Statistics Canada
Statistics Canada reports that Canadian households’ debt-to-income ratio decreased in the third quarter due to a growth in disposable income that outpaced debt.
This marks the sixth consecutive quarter of decline in this measure.
The agency states that the ratio of household credit market debt relative to household disposable income dropped to 173.1 percent in the third quarter on a seasonally adjusted basis, down from 175.3 percent in the previous quarter.
In simpler terms, for every dollar of household disposable income, there was $1.73 in credit market debt according to Statistics Canada.
Furthermore, the household debt service ratio, which measures the total obligated payments of principal and interest on credit market debt as a proportion of household disposable income, decreased to 14.72 percent in the third quarter compared to 14.98 percent in the second quarter.
Debt payments saw a slight increase of 0.2 percent as disposable income grew by two percent.