A recent study on living wage levels in three Manitoba cities says that the provincial government’s planned increases to the minimum wage will still leave those earning it with less money than they need for a bare-bones budget.
The Manitoba office of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives released its living wage update on Aug. 25. It estimates that families with two working parents and two children would need to earn an average of $18.34 per hour in Winnipeg, $16.25 an hour in Thompson and $15.66 an hour in Brandon to maintain a modest standard of living.
In Thompson, the living wage would work out to a household income of just over $59,000 for a two-earner family.
Manitoba’s minimum wage, currently $11.95 per hour, is set to go up to $13.50 on Oct. 1, $14.15 next April 1 and $15 in October 2023.
“The recent announcement by the Manitoba government to increase the minimum wage from $11.95 to $15 over the next two years demonstrates the government understands that the current minimum wage places working families in an impossible financial situation,” said Niall Harney, the Errol Black Chair in Labour Issues and senior researcher at CCPA. “Although these increases will provide a significant boost to working families, many will still struggle to meet their basic needs until Manitoba’s minimum wage approaches relative parity with the living wage.”
Costs included in the living wage calculation include transportation, housing, clothing and food, among others, but not things like income to pay off loans or save up to buy a house or for retirement. It does include a contingency fund of two weeks’ salary in savings. Living wage calculations assume that couples or single parents each work 35 hours per week and receive minimal paid vacation and sick time from their employers.
The report says the living wage level for two-parent, two-children households in Thompson went up 14 per cent since 2020, when it was calculated to be $14.27. It estimates that transportation costs have gone up eight per cent in the past two years, and parents’ education costs (two university courses for one parent per year) have risen seven per cent. Food and housing are both calculated to have risen five per cent, while the biggest jump is in other expenses, which have risen 23 per cent. This category includes things like cell phones and internet services, which are practically necessities in today’s world.
According to Statistics Canada’s 2021 census, there are 1,250 families consisting of a couple, married or unmarried, with one or more children in Thompson, and the median after-tax income for such families was $118,000, meaning half of them earn more than that and the other half earn less.
By the time the Manitoba minimum wage has risen to $15 per hour in just over a year from now, it will still be less than the current living wage for single-parent, one-child families in Thompson, which the CCPA calculated as $15.77 per hour, up six per cent from $14.93 per hour in 2020.
That works out to an annual income of about $28,700.
There were 620 one-parent family households in Thompson in 2021, according to Statistics Canada, and their median after-tax income was $60,000.
When the minimum wage goes up to $13.50 per hour in just over a month, a person working 35 hours per week at that wage would make about $24,500 per year. By the time it reaches $15 per hour in October 2023, a person working 35 hours per week at minimum wage would earn $27,300 per year.
