Quebecers working for the minimum wage are fewer and fewer and their financial situation is more favorable than the rest of Canadians in the same situation, notes the Research Chair in Taxation and Public Finance at the University of Sherbrooke in a new study. published on Friday. Portrait of the situation in a few key data.
1er next May, the general rate of the minimum wage will increase by one dollar to stand at $15.25 an hour — an opportunity to draw the outlines of this reality that fewer and fewer Quebecers have come into contact with in recent years, according to the study, co-authored by Suzie Cerny and Luc Godbout.
In 2018, more than 300,000 Quebecers worked for minimum wage, the equivalent of about 8% of employees in the province – excluding the self-employed. In 2022, they were just over 160,000, or 4%.
“The labor market is changing,” says tax expert and holder of the Chair, Luc Godbout. “That means that even for jobs usually paid at minimum wage, these people find themselves paid more than minimum wage, to make up for a scarcity of labour,” he explains.
However, this does not mean that they find themselves at a salary well above. If, in 2022, only 4% of employees in Quebec worked at the minimum wage of $14.25, it is 15% of them who earned $17.80 or less, i.e. $3.50 more than the salary minimum.
Another finding of the study: in line with the trend of recent years, the researchers point out that a “large proportion” of people working for the minimum wage in Quebec are under 25 and work part-time.
How do we compare to other provinces?
Of all the provinces in Canada, British Columbia has the highest minimum wage. He achieved a rate of $16.75 an hour there this year. With a rate of $15.25 per hour, Quebec only comes in third place, just after Ontario at $16.55.
And yet, it is all the same in Quebec that the financial conditions of people earning minimum wage are the most favourable. To arrive at this conclusion, two factors must be taken into account: disposable income – which takes into account government levies and redistributions – as well as the market basket measure (MPM) – which calculates the cost of a basket of goods and services corresponding to a modest standard of living.
We then see that it is in Quebec that the “coverage ratio” of the MBM is the highest, regardless of the type of household observed. For example, for a single person, it is 107% in Quebec, and 96% and 95% respectively in Ontario and British Columbia. In other words, Quebeckers earning the minimum wage have better coverage of their essential needs than their neighbors in other provinces, even if the latter have higher minimum wage rates.
And where are we in relation to inflation?
For the past twenty years, the minimum wage has also increased much faster than inflation in Quebec, the data show. Since 2002, the consumer price index—which measures changes in the cost of living—has risen 52%, while the minimum wage has more than doubled, rising 112%.
Researchers also looked at the recent surge in inflation to check its impact on minimum wage earners. “Given the turbulence that we have seen since the pandemic, do people manage to maintain their purchasing power or their coverage of essential needs? When we compare ourselves to 2021, because there was one-off aid in 2022, we see that in general, it has been maintained, ”underlines Mr. Godbout.