Living wage versus minimum wage

On April 1, Nova Scotia's minimum wage increased from $12.55 per hour to $12.95 per hour. Many would term that shift an April Fool's joke.

One is Christine Saulnier.

She is director of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives in Nova Scotia and a believer in a minimum wage of $15 an hour or more. There is a quantum difference between living wages and minimum wages.

Last year, the centre deemed a living wage in Halifax was $21.80 an hour. The lowest living wage in Nova Scotia at the time was in Bridgewater, at $16.80.

The living wage is calculated using cost of living expenses (including food, shelter, clothing, transportation, and other necessities) in communities. The new provincial minimum wage is still below the living wage for those living in Nova Scotia communities.

Saulnier says the responsibility to provide a living wage does not fall squarely on employers. She said the government needs to address the impact of low wages on workers.

A living wage is the amount a family needs to avoid severe financial stress, to promote the healthy development of children and to allow families to participate in the community.

The first local employer I ever heard speak to the value of paying his staff a living wage was Ross Patterson of The Noodle Guy in Port Williams. Paying a decent salary means something to him and that goes some distance to explain why his restaurant is a community hub.

Employer representatives fought against increasing wages when the recent Minimum Wage Review Committee looked at the issue for the province. Of course, one could argue both sides of the argument looking at the fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Nova Scotia NDP Leader Gary Burrill called for the minimum wage to be increased to $15, especially with those working on the frontlines of the pandemic in mind. Sobeys was the only one of three major grocery suppliers in our country to continue paying its staff bonuses or ‘hero pay' of $2 extra per hour during the second wave of lockdowns. I assume that practice is continuing into the third wave.

Saulnier has said, "Those we need the most are likely the ones being paid the least. The hero pay should be a permanent increase to retail employees."

I would argue that long-term care workers need better pay too.

Rising housing prices, rent and massive shortages in affordable housing should be factored into any thinking on this topic. The

St. Francis Xavier University Extension Department and the Montreal-based Community Housing Transformation Centre are working together now to figure out ways to improve low-income housing. Other provinces, like Ontario, British Columbia and Quebec, can already boast they have successful community housing associations.

Fortunately, the provincial government has seen fit to institute a temporary cap on rent increases and is helping to create an affordable housing commission around long-term housing solutions. If only the Valley could be eligible for some of the rapid housing dollars the federal folks have been handing out. More than $8 million is coming to Halifax.

Adding to the overall cost of living is the fact that food prices are going up. Dalhousie University's Sylvain Charlebois and his colleagues from the Agri-Food Analytics Lab indicate there is data showing the inflation rate is a few percentage points higher than the 1.2 per cent Statistics Canada is reporting.

Charlebois adds there is reason to believe Canadians are feeling anxious when it comes to food affordability, thanks to the socioeconomic crunch created by the pandemic.

Founded a dozen years ago, the Basic Income Canada Network would like to see a basic income of $22,000 a year for all adult Canadians. Not only that the network thinks its plan is financially sound and would nearly eliminate poverty.

But, as U.S. president Joe Biden maintains, reducing poverty in this country would not be without tax hikes for wealthy income earners and a higher corporate tax rate. Poverty, it can easily be argued, harms our collective health and quality of life. If anything positive is to come out of the wretched pandemic, it should be the resolve to share the wealth and improve services for those who have suffered from intergenerational trauma and poverty. To those who term it reckless and immoral of the Rankin government to allow poverty to fester, I would remind readers that an election is imminent.