Ontario’s minimum wage is going up on Sunday. Why advocates say it’s still not enough

Nearly a million minimum wage workers across Ontario will be getting a salary bump as of Sunday, but with increasing costs of living and a rental crisis, some advocates say it’s still not enough.

The province’s minimum wage will jump from $15.50 to $16.55 per hour on Sunday, October 1.

Minister of Labour, Immigration, Training and Skills Development David Piccini, said the “6.8 per cent raise means up to $2,200 more in workers’ pockets every year and brings Ontario to one of the highest minimum wages in the country.”

While Piccini says the increase will help “more than 900,000 hard-working men and women across our province earn more take-home pay for themselves and their families,” some advocate groups say it still falls short, especially for those living in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA).

The Living Wage Network (LWN) estimates that the minimum wage to live in the GTA is $23.15.

In its most recent report, the LWN said those calculations “emerge from a backdrop of record-breaking inflation and Consumer Price Index increases, and workers at the bottom end of the wage scale are most vulnerable to these kinds of fluctuations.”

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“A living wage is an effective tool to combat working poverty by making sure that employees can make ends meet where they live. By incorporating expenses that a worker must cover, such as shelter, food, transportation and more, our living wages are much closer to reality than a politically set minimum wage.”

Findings from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives are even more grim, suggesting that people living in Toronto would need to earn $40 an hour to afford a two-bedroom apartment and still have money left over for food and utilities.

For a one-bedroom apartment, they would need to earn close to $34 an hour.

“The discrepancy between the rental wage and the minimum wage is such that, in most Canadian cities, minimum-wage earners are extremely unlikely to escape core housing need,” reads the report.

“They are likely spending too much on rent, living in units that are too small, or, in many cases, both.”

With files from Michael Ranger