Canadians believe the country's standard of living is on a downward slide and will not recover any time soon, says a new poll released Thursday.

The Economic Club of Canada, a Toronto-based business discussion forum, said three-quarters of Canadians are reducing their expectations regarding how their lives will rebound as the economy improves.

Canadians do not necessarily believe they will see real incomes drop as in the Great Depression of the 1930s, said Mark Adler, the president of the Economic Club.

Instead, the 3,376 adults polled said they will be less likely to engage in excessive borrowing to buy goods and services, he said.

"We've grown up as a credit card generation. I think now we're going back to the attitudes of the '50s," Adler noted.

More than 60 per cent of people surveyed online between March 3-5 said they were "just getting by" while almost half believe their standard of living, not unemployment or the value of their investment portfolio, is their most important economic concern.

The Economic Club survey, undertaken by pollster Pollara, is accurate within plus or minus 1.69 per cent 19 times out of 20.

Recession depression

Many countries in the industrialized world, including Canada, have seen their gross domestic products shrink in recent months while their unemployment rates have jumped.

In Canada, for example, the economy shrank 0.1 per cent in February, though that's a slower pace compared with the 0.7 per cent decline experienced in January.

Unlike in previous economic downturns, however, individuals are not expecting to return to their previous consumption-oriented lifestyles, Adler said.

"[The recession] is really affecting people. Before, it was limited. This time, it is so widespread," he said.

Microwave barometer

The desire to cut consumption can be seen in a recent poll conducted by the Pew Internet & American Life Project, a U.S.-based non-partisan research outfit.

In a survey released in April, more individual Americans saw fewer goods as essential in their lives.

For instance, the percentage of U.S. citizens who believed a microwave was crucial shot up to 68 per cent in 2006, up from 32 per cent a decade earlier.

Now, only 48 per cent of Americans say they need a microwave oven.

Television purchases followed a similar trend. In 2006, 64 per cent of U.S. adults considered a television to be a crucial household item. In the latest Pew study, only 52 per cent of Americans said a TV was an essential good.

Pessimistic optimists

According to other polls, however, a growing percentage of Canadians actually see the economy as improving in the coming months.

For example, also in April, Ipsos-Reid released a poll in which 83 per cent of respondents were more "optimistic" about Canada's economic prospects.

But those two findings — that the economy is improving while Canada's longer-run standard of living is falling — are not contradictory, said John Wright, senior vice-president at Ipsos-Reid.

"Many in Canada are optimistic that the economy will improve and get better [from where it is] right now.… But as the economic club would also say, people recognize that economy is fundamentally changing and we will not be as well off as we once were," Wright said.