No, you don’t live fat on minimum wage. But it is in Quebec that we live with the most dignity. And by far.
Posted at 5:00 a.m.
This observation is counter-intuitive, since the minimum wage is higher in other provinces, such as British Columbia, Ontario and Alberta, which have already passed the symbolic threshold of $15 an hour.
In Quebec, the minimum wage will reach $14.25, starting Sunday, up 75 cents. It should pass the $15 mark next year, if we trust the declarations of the Minister of Labour.
But the groups that have been campaigning for a $15 minimum wage since 2016 are far from claiming victory. Because of inflation, $18 is the new $15. We will surely see it on the signs of the demonstrators who will march in the streets of Montreal, Sunday, on this International Workers’ Day.
Others go even further. For example, the chairman of the board of Cogego, Louis Audet, caused a lot of ink to flow by pleading for a minimum wage of $20, in order to fight against inequities.
It is true that we must take seriously the differences in wealth, a source of injustice that creates popular discontent and social instability. We see it with the cleavage in France which resulted in a majority of votes for extremist parties in the first round of the presidential election.
Except that in all this debate, the minimum wage is the tree that hides the forest. This is only one of the ingredients that must be weighed in order to properly analyze the situation of workers at the bottom of the ladder.
To compare apples to apples, we must take into account the tax benefits to which workers are entitled, such as the work premium, the solidarity credit, the GST credit and child allowances, which are very profitable for families. with low incomes in Quebec.
And we must also keep in mind that the cost of living is lower in Quebec than in other provinces, such as Ontario or British Columbia, where housing is exorbitant.
Considering these factors, we realize that Quebec is the only province where a full-time minimum wage worker has enough money in their pockets to cover their basic needs, as defined by the Market Basket Measure (MBM). .
In fact, a single person will cover 104% of their basic needs in Quebec, compared to 92% on average in Canada. Regardless of the type of household analyzed, Quebec is always the province where minimum wage workers fare best, according to a study by the Research Chair in Taxation and Public Finance at the University of Sherbrooke.1.
That’s not all. Globally, Canada is one of the countries where minimum wage workers have the best quality of life.
But inflation in all this?
Undoubtedly, the increase in the cost of living, which has never been so steep in 30 years, is much harder to swallow for the less well-off who devote a much larger part of their budget to essential expenses.
But here again, things have to be put into perspective.
For 20 years, the minimum wage has doubled, rising twice as fast (+98%) as inflation (+44%). Even this year, the increase of 75 cents, or 5.56%, will allow workers to improve their purchasing power, especially considering the one-time assistance from Quebec, namely the credit enhancement from Solidarité and the famous $500 which was perfectly justified for the poorest.
Some say it’s not enough. They argue that CPD only helps to survive, not to live well. Without a doubt.
But by raising the minimum wage too quickly, there is a risk of harming SMEs which are struggling to recover from the pandemic. Although with the labor shortage, companies have no choice but to raise wages. This is also why only 4.8% of the population remains on the minimum wage, a low in almost 15 years.
By raising the minimum wage, we also risk causing school dropouts, by encouraging young people to work rather than stay at school. Because, it must be said, a majority of minimum wage workers are young people between the ages of 15 and 24, people who work part time. In other words, students, some of whom live with their parents.
If it’s the students we want to help, let’s do it in a more surgical way, giving a helping hand to those who really need it.
If the goal is to reduce poverty, let’s focus on single people who have not been spoiled in recent years, when governments only had them for families with children.
However, it is not by raising the minimum wage that we will help the least spoiled of all, that is to say the recipients of social assistance, whose meager income of $11,450 a year barely covers half of essential expenses (51% of the MBM).
Obviously, you don’t win elections by courting the poorest. But if we really care about social justice, we can’t leave them hungry.