Are Nova Scotia’s minimum-wage recommendations an April Fool’s joke?
Even when it reaches $15 an hour, it’s not a living wage
In January, the Nova Scotia Minimum Wage Review Committee came out with its annual report. The committee recommends that by April 1 of this year the minimum wage be increased to $13.35, and that by Oct. 1, 2022, the minimum wage be raised to $13.60 an hour.
It won’t be until April 1, 2024 that the minimum wage hits $15 an hour.
Each of these recommendations has been approved by the Tim Houston government.
According to the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives 2021 Report, which came out a mere month before the minimum-wage review report, the highest living wage in the province — and living wage represents the lowest possible hourly rate of pay to allow people to meet their basic needs — is $22.05, in Halifax. The lowest is $18.45 in Cape Breton Regional Municipality. All calculated living wages across the province are well above the current minimum wage rate of $12.95 per hour, leaving many to struggle.
The proposed $15 minimum wage for 2024 is still an inadequate amount, especially since the cost of living is sure to go up in the next two years.
The proposed minimum wage increases are, frankly, pathetic. It’s worth noting that the minimum-wage committee uses the low-income cut-off to calculate its recommended minimum wages, which is far less detailed than the market basket measures approach used by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, which offers a more realistic picture of the cost of living.
You’d think that the Minimum Wage Review Committee would be in support of those who make minimum wage, but instead they are pushing for poverty wages.
Unless the members of the committee are making minimum wage themselves — or have ever had to subsist on that — how can they understand having to make a decision between affording the astronomical cost of housing in the province and affording healthy food?
As the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives report Living Wages in Nova Scotia 2021 notes, “Workers are left living to work instead of working to live.”
It is clear from the committee’s lowball recommendations that the reality of minimum-wage workers is far from their sphere of reality. Minimum-wage workers deserve to have true representation. They deserve to have someone fight for what they need and deserve. and a PhD student in educational studies at Mount Saint Vincent University in Halifax. She lives in Pictou County with her partner. She can be reached via Twitter at @HailieTattrie and via email hailie.tattrie2@msvu.ca