October 1, 2015
Toronto Star
Sara Mojtehedzadeh – Work and Wealth reporter
Minimum wage rises, but workers still suffering
Ontario’s minimum wage creeps up today, from $11 an hour to $11.25. But the boost won’t give much relief to the province’s growing number of precarious and low-wage workers, according to a new report.
That’s because current minimum wage levels would have to increase by a full 25 per cent in order to meet the standard set in 1976, when a minimum wage job lifted a worker above the poverty line.
In Toronto, minimum wage is still 61 per cent less than the hourly sum needed by a working family to scrape by, the research by left-leaning think tank the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives shows.