Who Gets Paid Minimum Wage in Canada?

October 7th, 2006, 09:01 PM

http://worthwhile.typepad.com/worthw...ts_paid_m.html

October 7th, 2006, 11:46 PM

Minimum wage is just a number dreamed up by a politician, I say.

May 1st, 2007, 09:37 AM

I have had a job for almost twenty years. The last time I made minimum wage I was thirteen years old, living at home and was a field worker. I considered myself lucky to have a hundred dollars.

May 1st, 2007, 09:45 AM

Very few people make minimum minimum wage. But if you could look at the numbers that were within $1 of minimum wage it would be another matter. I worked a "minimum wage" job for three years, after the first three months I got a whole nickel an hour more, so I wasn't minimum wage anymore. By the end of the three years, with perfect reviews?

I was making 15c an hour above minimum wage, rock on.

So don't trust those statistics to give to clear a view. They are what they are, the number of people on minimum wage, not practically minimum wage.

May 2nd, 2007, 10:19 PM

Why didn't you get a different job with the skills you had gained? It's a nice feeling to tell the employer that you are leaving for a better paying job.

May 2nd, 2007, 10:28 PM

Because I didn't have them yet?

Even when I was done, I had to work for free for a year, to get the experience to work for myself.

Its easy to forget that there is the baby boomer bottlegap, and more people than jobs (if only slightly) when you aren't on the bottom.

When you are...well, its hard to forget.

May 2nd, 2007, 10:33 PM

If I were to actually count up all the hours I work, I actually make less than minimum wage. That's ok though, I enjoy what I do and that is what is important.

May 2nd, 2007, 10:34 PM

I'm not criticizing, but if you look at what you just said, you're stating that, after three years, and perfect job reviews, you hadn't gained any skills.

I'm certain you didn't actually mean that, but that's what's been written.

May 2nd, 2007, 10:49 PM

Thats the thing about minimum wage, you don't grow, you don't get any useful training for anything other than other minimum wage jobs. Alot of money is spent on job design to ensure minimum wage jobs are set up that way, the more one learns about HR the more I think Catbert is pretty realistic, helpfully unhelpful.

The skills I got I had to pay for , through college. Now, if you can get a descent non-minimum wage job, then its alot nicer. Wife has a good one, money isn't great, but they give you all kinds of training. Its a world of difference.

May 2nd, 2007, 11:00 PM

So the minimum wage jobs served their purpose - getting you through college? How come your college education has resulted in a minumum wage job again?

In an earlier post you mentioned working for yourself. Is working for yourself equivelent to minimum wage? Then you mention something about HR, HR admin pays pretty well. Are you starting up an HR business or doing HR consulting or something?

I guess I confused about where you are employment-wise now.

May 2nd, 2007, 11:23 PM

Sorry, I am not in a minimum wage job now, or I could be, all depends on how it averages out.

I was stating that the minimum wage job was not "minimum wage" as after three years of work I was making 15c more, thus not "minimum wage". Hell, after 3 months I was making 5c more, thus I was not making minimum wage.

I got "lucky" with education, even then its not a sure thing. There are only so many jobs, and education is not a guarantee of getting out of minimum wage, a vast majority of workers in this country are already skilled workers, many people with 3 to 4 years of required schooling for their field are only making within 1 to at most 2 dollars of minimum wage.

There is a limit of jobs, and unrealistically high levels of skills due to our immigration policy. If everyone has high levels of skills, then it no longer guarantees you a high wage, as you are easily replacable.

The bottleneck gap is huge, those in the bottleneck make unrealistic wages to those on the bottom, with no forced retirement age, that bottleneck will no longer clear.

People on the bottom can litterally work until they are 50 and they will not make as much as the 50 year olds currently are. Raises are slim and wages are low for new hires.

Now some fields are blatant opposites in this aspect, and if you go to a place with a labour shortage (like alberta) you can make a shipload (providing you can get somewhere to live).

Education only ends your reliance on minimum wage jobs if there is a field with a shortage of skilled workers. Most fields however only have a shortage of skilled workers willing to work for next to minimum wage, so..counter productive.

May 2nd, 2007, 11:34 PM

If you are welfare you get less then minimum wage.

May 3rd, 2007, 01:09 AM

Minimum wage...I can barely live on what I make...I don't know how anyone can even attempt to live on minimum wage. So, sure, there may be a great number making more than minimum wage...but that doesn't mean they aren't scraping by.

May 3rd, 2007, 09:08 AM

GEE, every person at Tim hortons makes miumin wage ,women with children ,older folks ,where did you get this Sat. it is bull **** --chilcare workers ,
Working poor get 'appalling' 25¢


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Minimum hourly pay to rise to $8, weeks after MPPs gave themselves hefty raises

Jan 04, 2007 04:30 AM
Robert Benzie
Phinjo Gombu
Staff reporters

Ontario MPPs just gave themselves 25-per-cent raises, but the lowest paid workers in the province will have to settle for a 25-cent-an-hour hike to the minimum wage.
New Democrat MPP Cheri DiNovo, who has been pushing to have the minimum wage raised by more than $2 to $10 an hour, called plans to raise it instead by 25 cents "just unconscionable."
Labour Minister Steve Peters made it official yesterday the province's minimum hourly wage will rise to $8 from $7.75 as of Feb. 1.
That's a 3.2 per cent increase.
The move comes after MPPs were rewarded with hefty annual pay hikes worth between $22,000 and $39,000 on Dec. 21.
DiNovo also opposed the MPP raise.
"Symbolically it's appalling and in actuality it's appalling," said DiNovo. "We have people out there at $7.75 an hour – now even when they're raised to $8 an hour they're still well below the poverty line, working 40 hours a week."
"Over two-thirds of those are women, many of them with children ... and a lot of them are immigrants," she said in an interview.
"We have 13,500 children using food banks in Toronto," said the United Church minister and MPP for Parkdale-High Park.
"If it were only for symbolism, we should not have raised MPPs' salaries," she said.
Premier Dalton McGuinty and Progressive Conservative Leader John Tory have warned that a dramatic $2.25-an-hour increase to the minimum wage would hurt business and jeopardize jobs.
Ontario businesses are already under a lot of pressure, according to Satinder Chera, director of provincial affairs for the Canadian Federation of Independent Business.
Combined with the high dollar, increasing energy prices, and new regulations for fees and licensing, the increase in minimum wage may cost jobs and the ability for small and medium sized businesses – that make up the backbone of the economy – to grow in Ontario.
"No one disputes the fact about minimum wage but by increasing the number, you are going to increase salary expectations of everyone else and so you have a structural increase in wage that's going to further put pressure on the business," said Chera.
"If you are going to tie business owners' hands, it's going to make it even harder to employ people."
Since the Liberals came to power in 2003, they have increased the minimum wage by 30 cents each year, saying it would help businesses cope and remain competitive.
Ontario's economy is already lagging behind some of the other provinces like British Columbia and Alberta.
In fact, high property taxes in Toronto have claimed 100,000 jobs in the past 15 years, according to CFIB. And increasing the minimum wage will affect future employment.
"It's great to post $8-an-hour minimum wage on the wall but it means nothing to a person who can't find a job," said Chera.
Ashley Nickles, 18, is one of the slew of Ontario residents struggling to make ends meet on minimum-wage or near-minimum-wage.
Nickles, who moved to Toronto from London, Ont., about seven months ago, earns $8 an hour dispensing ice cream to customers at a downtown parlour. She works about 44 hours a week and after taxes takes home roughly $300.
"It's just enough to get me by," said Nickles, who shares the rent on a Scarborough apartment with her boyfriend. After paying for the essentials, including the rent, food, transportation and hydro, she has about $250 left over for the month.
She has to hold back on luxuries, but she notes, optimistically, "I can survive because I am young."
The 25-cent hike in the minimum wage, "is not high," she says.
But like other minimum-wage workers interviewed by the Toronto Star yesterday, Nickles sees her situation as temporary.
She dreams of becoming a dental hygienist and says she wants to go in "that direction, not this direction" – pointing at the ice cream containers.
The latest workforce survey by Statistics Canada shows that Nickles' age is typical of minimum-wage earners.
More than half of all minimum-wage workers in Canada are aged between 15 and 25, and women made up almost two-thirds of them, the survey found.
And minimum-wage earners are typically 4.6 per cent of the workforce. In Ontario, the number rises slightly to 5.3 per cent.
As expected, most minimum-wage workers are concentrated in the accommodation and food services industry.
Meanwhile "highly unionized industries such as construction, public administration and manufacturing" had the lowest rate of minimum-wage workers, the survey showed.
DiNovo's private member's legislation calling for a $10-an- hour minimum wage has passed second reading but is now languishing before the Legislature's estimates committee.
"They're putting this bill on the shelf basically, so we're going to have to fight to get it back," the rookie MPP said.
"All those spurious arguments that this is somehow going to destroy the economy are absolutely ridiculous," said DiNovo, noting European countries with high minimum-wage rates are doing well economically.
In a statement, Peters noted that the Liberals are raising the minimum wage for the fourth time since taking office in 2003.
"We are providing Ontario's lowest-paid and most vulnerable workers with the fourth increase in the minimum wage in four years," the minister said.
"It is to Ontario's economic advantage to see that our workers are paid a fair wage," he said, adding the change fulfils a promise that McGuinty made during the 2003 election.
Peters pointed out that the previous Progressive Conservative government froze the minimum wage at $6.85 an hour until the Liberals took power.
The Liberals raised it to $7.15 in 2004, $7.45 in 2005, and $7.75 last year.
By contrast, MPPs, whose wages were essentially frozen for the past decade, received healthy pay increases as a pre-Christmas bonanza.
Their base salaries soared to $110,775 from $88,771. Cabinet ministers' wages rose to $157,633 from $126,321 and the premier's pay went to $198,620 from $159,166.
Adam Spence, executive director of the Ontario Association of Food Banks, said 16.9 per cent of the people forced to use food banks are low-income earners.
"And if you were to exclude children from the mix, it's more like one in three of the people who are served by the food banks are (low-income workers)," said Spence.
"It is a real struggle for a lot of people. Without adequate and appropriate wages, people aren't going to be able to put the basics on their table," he said.
Brenda Campbell, administrator of the Workers' Action Centre, said $8 an hour is inadequate as a living wage.
"People want to work. We want people to work. They should at least be able to live," said Campbell.
"It just does not make sense."
Paulino De Santos, a 35-year-old refugee from Angola, has worked for the past four years as a security guard. He now earns slightly more than the minimum, taking home between $9 and $10 per hour.
But he said he's not unhappy.
"I'll take it because I have to live with it," said De Santos, who hopes one day to be a police officer.
"If it was more, it would be better," said De Santos.
"But it's way better here than in Angola," he said.
with files from Surya Bhattacharya

May 3rd, 2007, 09:15 AM

Go to hrdc and see the list of low paid jobs


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May 3rd, 2007, 09:18 AM

welfare get 525 a month in ont .to live in a room thats 475 .00 easy ,food bank no phone

how do you get out ???

if the person is sick or disabled they live with that amount for months even up to a year before disablity helps


the support system for a women with child is worse she gets 900.00 a month no hope of improvemnt no way to pay of childcare

May 3rd, 2007, 09:42 AM

We need to do more for Adult Education. IMO The EI fund continues to grow. We are advertising all over the world for skilled Trades people, instead of demanding that "labourers" either get paid better wages(if you have to pay the price you would train up some skills to offset) or get signed to an apprenticeship program.

We are paying Welfare to young single mothers instead of setting up a program where they can continue their Education while nuturing their child. We need to integrate Early Childhood College courses with hands on Child Care within our communities, and care for children of Mother's in the Education system.

We need to offer more incentives in the line of "lifetime learning" credits. We need to expand On-Line University and College courses so people can learn skills and gain their Education on their time schedule. So what if it takes 2 years to earn one credit?

Too many people are guarding their own little fiefdom instead of doing what would be good for society. JMO

May 3rd, 2007, 09:46 AM

Exactly --give the youth/the low income earners the attitude and the skills to succeed

Instead of degrating them --social skills my government never taught --loll