66% of Canadian poll respondents report being impacted by inflation
Posted October 17, 2022 7:38 am.
As Canadians continue to deal with soaring costs of various everyday items, a new poll conducted by Maru Public Opinion and Yahoo Canada has found that 66 per cent of respondents reported being personally impacted by recent inflation.
According to the results of the poll released Monday morning, 53 per cent of those surveyed said they are “‘worried’ because inflation is causing some serious money issues for them.”
On top of that, 13 per cent of respondents told pollsters they were “feeling ‘genuinely panicked'” because rising prices have forced them to make “dramatic lifestyle changes/tradeoffs.”
Meanwhile, the remaining 34 per cent said recent inflation hasn’t impacted their ability to buy items.
RELATED: Loblaw freezes prices of all No Name products until end of January
As a result of increased costs, nearly two-thirds of respondents said they were looking at reducing spending or tightening their priorities. This marked an increase of 11 per cent compared to June.
So where are people cutting their personal budgets? According to the poll, the top item is dining out at restaurants with 64 per cent of respondents reporting that’s where they will trim spending (down four percentage points compared to June). Household groceries was the second choice for 51 per cent of respondents.
Rounding out the top five list of items people reported reducing their spending on due to inflation are entertainment (movies, concert and stage productions and sporting events), clothing and footwear, and recreation or educational-related items.
When it comes to items people are holding out on finding efficiencies, shelter was the top item followed by public transportation and energy.
The poll was conducted using 1,521 randomly selected Canadian adults who are Maru Voice Canada online panellists and it has a margin of error of +/- 2.5 per cent, 19 times out of 20.
