Here's how much inflation is costing Prince Edward Islanders

With the exception of one month, P.E.I. has had the highest annual inflation in Canada every month since March of 2021.

And since that time, wages on the Island have not kept up.

To examine how much wages have fallen behind, CBC News compared the average weekly earnings on P.E.I. with the consumer price index (CPI), both as published by Statistics Canada, from March of 2021 to January of this year.

For the first few months, when inflation was ramping up, average wages did keep pace. In July of 2021, with prices 3.2 per cent higher than they had been four months earlier, wages were up 4.4 per cent.

Then, after bouncing back and forth in the latter half of that year, inflation began to leave wages behind in January 2022, with most of the damage coming in the first half of that year. Wages were mostly flat, while the CPI rose another 8.6 per cent.

Wages rose a little in the summer of 2022, but the difference between the increase in wages and the CPI settled in at about five per cent in the latter half of the year. In January 2023, it was 4.8 per cent.

Here's what that means in dollars and cents.

In March of 2021, average weekly earnings including overtime on P.E.I. were $919.51. By January of this year, they had risen to $992.10.

At pre-pandemic inflation rates, that 7.9 per cent increase in just under two years would look pretty good — but it is well behind what would have been needed to keep up with post-pandemic inflation.

Consider that $919.51 in average weekly earnings from March of 2021. If wages had kept pace with inflation, that weekly paycheque would have been worth $1,035.98 in January, not the actual figure of $992.10. 

That makes a difference of $43.88 every week in the buying power of the average wage in March of 2021 compared to the average in January 2023.

To add further context, an average weekly paycheque of $1,035.98 would mean Prince Edward Island no longer had the lowest in Canada. It would be higher than Nova Scotia's, but still well under the national average of $1,185.39.