This October 1st, Ontario’s general minimum wage has gone up from $17.20 to $17.60 per hour. The student minimum wage has also gone up from $16.20 to $16.60 per hour.
Every year, the minimum wage changes to keep up with the cost of living as measured by the latest CPI rate* – an important law we won in 2014. Without this law, minimum wage earners would not be getting any increases! But no matter how you stretch that 40-cent increase, it is not enough.
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Workers cannot be expected to rely on this yearly minimum wage adjustment alone. As the affordability crisis deepens, so does the urgency for decent wages. Since 2021, our decent work movement has been pushing for at least $20, but the Ontario government has not listened or taken steps to show it cares about workers. In the last few years, we have seen corporate profits go way up, yet many of these big businesses pay their workers the bare minimum. Instead of the Ontario government making sure there is rent control and that grocery prices are regulated, working people are being forced to work longer hours, work multiple jobs or buy less food in order to pay rent.
The Workers’ Action Centre supports lots of women, racialized people, and immigrants of all ages and in a range of sectors who spend several years – even decades – struggling to survive on low-wages. Lynn, a WAC member who has been working for about 20 years, says, “It’s still hard to find a job. When I do, it’s mostly at factories and restaurants.” About the new minimum wage, Lynn says, “I wouldn’t get a raise if it weren’t for the October 1st increase. But it still is not enough compared to how much prices have gone up. It won’t help my family much with paying for food and rent.”
Minimum wage earners are not only young people expecting to move on to better paying jobs soon after graduation. They include workers in precarious, unstable jobs, which are disproportionately filled by migrants, people of colour and women. None of them deserve poverty wages and inequality.
If you made less than $17.60 an hour before October 1st, check your next pay slip to ensure you are being paid correctly. If you need support, call our workers’ rights phone line at (416) 531-0778.
If you believe we need a minimum wage that lifts workers out of poverty, and is backed by real enforcement from the Ministry of Labour – join the movement!
*The Consumer Price Index (CPI) is a measure of the average change in prices experienced by consumers for a fixed basket of goods and services that include food, housing and transportation. Statistics Canada uses CPI as a key indicator of the rate of inflation.