Chris and Mariana Thomson don’t believe they’re better off in the four years since the federal Conservatives captured a majority government in 2011.

The Toronto couple, Chris, 40, a medical adviser for a pharmaceutical company and Mariana, 36, a medical writer, have seen soaring costs for everything from utility bills to food, clothing and transportation, but their paycheques are barely keeping pace.

“Housing prices have gone up and our salaries have not gone up equivalently, and that’s been the biggest hit for us,” Chris Thomson said in an interview as he and his wife went for a walk with their 9-month-old daughter, Stella.

The Thomsons are similar to the majority of Canadians — 51 per cent — who recently answered “no” when a Forum Research poll asked them, “Are you better off now than you were in 2011?”

The poll, conducted earlier this month, found only 34 per cent of respondents said yes.

When the survey results are broken down by age, those in the 18-to-34-year-old demographic are split, 41 per cent answering yes and 41 per cent saying no; 18 per cent said they don’t know.

But at least 50 per cent of Canadians ages 35 to 65 and older believe they aren’t better off.

Forum Research president Lorne Bozinoff says the poll results may not bode well for the Conservatives in the federal election this fall.

Forum’s findings suggest Conservative support in the election might be limited to that 34 per cent who truly believe they are better off than they were four years ago, he argues.

“Who would vote for them if they feel they’re worse off now, when the government made the economy one of their key things?” Bozinoff argues.

Fifteen per cent of those surveyed said they don’t know if they’re better off now than in 2011.

The Conservatives have made the economy one of their key planks heading toward the Oct. 19 vote. Leader Stephen Harper’s Conservatives have promised a balanced budget for 2015, though Jean-Denis Fréchette, the Parliamentary Budget Officer, says that’s unlikely.

In a bid to help families with children, the Conservatives recently increased the Universal Child Care Benefit, adding new payments for children aged 6 to 17 and increasing payments for children under age 6.

Meanwhile, the Liberals are promising to scrap the Conservatives’ new benefits and lower taxes for the middle class while hiking taxes for the rich.

The NDP is promising $15-a-day daycare spaces that would be funded in part by modest corporate-tax increases.

In terms of the Forum poll question, “are you better off” is a simple one that keys in on the state of the economy and an individual’s financial situation, Bozinoff explains.

“People are going to look back before this current mandate started. This is a killer question. A bad result on this (question) takes a toll on government,” Bozinoff added.

He noted that in the U.S. presidential debate in 1980 between Republican presidential candidate Ronald Reagan and then-president Jimmy Carter, Reagan turned to the cameras and told the American public to ask if they’re better off than when Carter took office four years prior.

“Is it easier for you to go and buy things in the stores than it was four years ago? Is there more or less unemployment in the country than there was four years ago? Is America as respected throughout the world as it was?” Reagan said, in part.

Reagan basically told Americans that if they answered no, then Carter wasn’t the candidate to go with. The comments are viewed as a turning point in that election, as Reagan defeated Carter to win the first of two presidential terms.

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Bozinoff says that for those in the 18-to-34-year-old range who responded to the Forum poll, their careers are just beginning to launch, so there may be a bit more optimism among that cohort.

“I think at that age, they are moving into the labour force. Many of them were in their 20s, in school, so they probably weren’t making that much money (in 2011). So they probably are better off now,” he says.

“But for those in the 35-plus group, their income growth probably isn’t the same. They feel the effects of higher prices, so they don’t think they are particularly better off,” Bozinoff says.

“Their standard of living has not gone up in the past four years,” Bozinoff added.

Chris and Mariana Thomson want to see the next federal government bring in more affordable child care for couples like them.

“If some of the federal budget went to some sort of national program, or at least an Ontario child-care program, that would be a big help for us for sure,” said Chris, adding he and his wife are on waiting lists for daycare.

“For some people, it just doesn’t make sense to go back to work with daycare costs being so high,” Chris said.

Though the Forum poll found 41 per cent of young people saying they’re better off now, Liam Crober-Best doesn’t believe he is.

The 18-year-old, who will begin studying at Sheridan College in Oakville in September, has struggled to find part-time jobs and is expecting to be hit with massive student debt in the coming years.

“Things have pretty well stayed the same for me,” Crober-Best said. “I haven’t seen much growth in the job market,” he said, adding that he remains optimistic.

Bozinoff says the Tories view balancing the budget as an ultimate goal of economic policy, but that’s not really the case from the public’s point of view.

“(Voters are) going to look at their everyday lives and sum it all up. I don’t know what the connection is between balancing the budget and someone’s everyday life being better, but that’s a long connection, and no one is making that connection,” Bozinoff argues.

The sample size for the Forum poll is 1,399 respondents. Conducted earlier this month, the poll surveyed Canadian adults using an interactive voice response telephone survey. The results are considered accurate plus or minus three percentage points, 19 times out of 20.

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