Yeah he will upgrade but will trade it in. Plus the kids to 18 hinge doesn't include university or other expenses that entitled kids want today (the 180k thing I read about was years ago). Plus families sometimes have 2 kids and a mortgage. I guarantee you the big earners have degrees. It's always the no degree ones who get laid off first. This is coming from my mother who has worked in for oil companies (both Canadian and American) for around 2 decades. Of course the people in albeeta have debt, after oil crashed a lot of 6 figure earners foreclosed on trucks and boats and houses. Some multimillion dollar houses were sold for less than half their asking price. Alberta is very much like the US in terms of consumer behaviour.