Three in four (76%) Toronto residents worried about cost of living
Toronto, Canada, August 21, 2026 — More than three-quarter (76%) of Toronto residents believe the cost of living is the city’s most pressing economic challenge for residents, and six in ten (59%) want City Hall to move faster and pursue new solutions that strengthen Toronto’s economy and make it easier to build a future here.
A similar proportion want more willingness to try new solutions (57%). Forty-five per cent said Toronto should move more quickly to address its major challenges even when solutions require difficult trade-offs, compared with just 15% per cent who favour a more cautious approach.
More than half (57%) say it is becoming harder to get ahead in Toronto
Fifty-seven percent said it is becoming harder for people to get ahead in the city. Residents also see affordability and economic growth as deeply connected. Ninety-two per cent said the cost of living has an impact on Toronto’s future prosperity and competitiveness, while similar proportions said the same about housing affordability (89%) and access to good-paying jobs (87%).
About the Study
The survey was completed by Ipsos and conducted between July 20 and August 4, 2006, on behalf of the Toronto Region Board of Trade. For this survey, a sample of 801 adults aged 18+ living in Toronto were interviewed through the Ipsos I-Say Panel. The precision of Ipsos online polls is measured using a credibility interval. In this case, the poll is accurate to within ±4.2 percentage points, 19 times out of 20, had all adults living in Toronto been polled. The credibility interval will be wider among subsets of the population. All sample surveys and polls may be subject to other sources of error, including, but not limited to coverage error, and measurement error.
For more information on this news release, please contact:
Sean Simpson
Senior Vice President, Ipsos Public Affairs
+1 416 324-2900
[email protected]
About Ipsos
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