A new report indicates Nova Scotia’s minimum wage is getting increasingly more difficult for people to live on, as the rising cost of basic necessities continues to outpace pay increases.
The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives’ annual living wage report calculates what two adults working full-time would have to earn to support two children and have a decent quality of life.
The living wage calculations reflect costs in June 2023, and take into account government transfers added to the family’s income, like child benefits, as well as deductions subtracted, like taxes and EI premiums.
“The wage should be enough for the family to avoid severe financial stress, support the healthy development of their children, and participate in their social, civic, and cultural communities,” the report said.
The report, released Thursday, said the living wage is $7.85 to $11.59 higher than what the minimum wage will be next month.
“Working people deserve to work to live, not just live to work,” the report said. “The cost of living is making that even harder.”
According to the report, the living wage is now $26.50 in the Halifax area, $25.40 for the Annapolis Valley, $25.05 for southern Nova Scotia, $24.30 for northern Nova Scotia, and $22.85 for Cape Breton.
On average, those numbers are 14 per cent higher than last year’s living wage calculations.
“These year-over-year increases are the most significant we have seen since we began calculating the living wage for Halifax in Nova Scotia in 2015,” said Christine Saulnier, the report’s author and director of the Nova Scotia chapter of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, in a release.
“Such unprecedented increases are due to overall increases to the costs of living, for shelter and food, in particular.”
The minimum wage in Nova Scotia is currently $14.50 per hour and is scheduled to rise to $15 in October.
But even with the scheduled increase, workers will still be left struggling to survive, said Suzanne MacNeil, spokesperson for Justice for Workers Nova Scotia.
“Workers in Nova Scotia are experiencing this crisis of affordability with no relief in sight,” she said in a release.
“We can’t stop at $15. The wage floor needs to come up much higher.”
Housing crisis
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The report said shelter costs were “the most significant increases in every region’s budgets,” with an average increase of 18 per cent.
It said prices are soaring despite rent control legislation — “yet the government chooses not to fill the gaps.”
“Instead, it insists that its role is ‘to balance the rights and needs of tenants and landlords,’” the report chided. “Landlords have no right to profit off tenants, nor do they need to do so. In contrast, tenants need housing to survive and thrive.”
While the province does have rent control — with the cap increasing from two per cent to five per cent in January — it does not apply to new tenants.
This means landlords can find ways to get rid of old tenants and increase the price for the new ones.
“The lack of provincial vacancy control, which ties rent to the unit, means that without reforms to the Residential Tenancies Act, such as closing no-fault eviction loopholes, more and more tenants are going to be displaced through renoviction or landlord-use evictions,” a spokesperson for ACORN Nova Scotia said in a release.
The living wage report also identified food and child care as the second and third largest expenses, respectively.
The report, which can be viewed on the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives website, made a number of recommendations for both governments and employers.
They include calls for employers to pay a living wage, and for the government to raise the minimum wage to $20 per hour.
It also calls on the government to expand income benefits, improve labour standards, implement a more progressive tax system, and expand public services and infrastructure.
“The living wage is one tool to help low-wage workers bridge the gap between income and costs,” it said.
“Both employers and governments must do more to help workers attain a good quality of life.”
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