Sorry, but I do not have time to go down that road at the moment myself. But here are some suggestions for you if you wish to pursue the matter on your own.
GDI is measured for the total economy, not for households only. Some of GDI is attributed to corporations and some to governments. It is not allocatable across households alone, as far as I can see, and therefore it's not possible to calculate the median GDI for households.
Statistics publishes annual data on HDI, 1999 to 2023, by quintile in its table 36-10-0587-01. They do not publish the median on this basis. One could use these quintile data, combined with a price index and a population time series, to examine the distribution of real HDI per capita. Alternatively, one could use personal income tax data in table 11-10-0008-01, which provides the median, but which is a different concept (tax-filers rather than households).
So, the HDI indicates that Canadians were much better off during the pandemic as the government printed large amounts of money (Quantitative Easing our way to twice the money supply M2). Canadians went on a spending spree, which inflated the prices of real goods without a corresponding increase in production. We were fortunate enough to have our commodities increase because other countries followed the same monetary policy and debased their currencies. This allowed the government to borrow from our future income to pay for our current consumption. This is not sustainable and is the main reason inflation is so high. Inflation is how we pay for the large government handouts and deficit spending. Economic policies that maximize HDI likely end in disaster by ignoring the real costs.
Real GDP per capita is tied to the production of real goods. HDI per capita is about the money supply and is less connected to the production of real goods. The gap between the two measures might be more interesting than the measures.
Your analysis makes sense, but it begs the question what would real GDP and real HDI have looked like over the past 4 years if governments had taken no fiscal action? Or perhaps more realistically, what would the optimal amount of fiscal and monetary stimulus have been? I think many would agree, with the benefit of hindsight, that governments overdid it.
I would also note that while booming Canadian household demand from 21Q3 to 22Q2 did contribute to our inflationary pressures, much of what we buy is imported from the US which also had strong consumer demand and high inflation at the time. It would have been hard to avoid the imported price inflation, at least in the short-run, even if our fiscal and monetary policies were more restrictive.
I’d be curious to see median GDI and HDI.
Sorry, but I do not have time to go down that road at the moment myself. But here are some suggestions for you if you wish to pursue the matter on your own.
GDI is measured for the total economy, not for households only. Some of GDI is attributed to corporations and some to governments. It is not allocatable across households alone, as far as I can see, and therefore it's not possible to calculate the median GDI for households.
Statistics publishes annual data on HDI, 1999 to 2023, by quintile in its table 36-10-0587-01. They do not publish the median on this basis. One could use these quintile data, combined with a price index and a population time series, to examine the distribution of real HDI per capita. Alternatively, one could use personal income tax data in table 11-10-0008-01, which provides the median, but which is a different concept (tax-filers rather than households).
So, the HDI indicates that Canadians were much better off during the pandemic as the government printed large amounts of money (Quantitative Easing our way to twice the money supply M2). Canadians went on a spending spree, which inflated the prices of real goods without a corresponding increase in production. We were fortunate enough to have our commodities increase because other countries followed the same monetary policy and debased their currencies. This allowed the government to borrow from our future income to pay for our current consumption. This is not sustainable and is the main reason inflation is so high. Inflation is how we pay for the large government handouts and deficit spending. Economic policies that maximize HDI likely end in disaster by ignoring the real costs.
Real GDP per capita is tied to the production of real goods. HDI per capita is about the money supply and is less connected to the production of real goods. The gap between the two measures might be more interesting than the measures.
Your analysis makes sense, but it begs the question what would real GDP and real HDI have looked like over the past 4 years if governments had taken no fiscal action? Or perhaps more realistically, what would the optimal amount of fiscal and monetary stimulus have been? I think many would agree, with the benefit of hindsight, that governments overdid it.
I would also note that while booming Canadian household demand from 21Q3 to 22Q2 did contribute to our inflationary pressures, much of what we buy is imported from the US which also had strong consumer demand and high inflation at the time. It would have been hard to avoid the imported price inflation, at least in the short-run, even if our fiscal and monetary policies were more restrictive.
This is a thoughtful comment. If we are focussed on policies for voters/households, HDI has real merit