Workers in the Atlantic provinces bring home some of the lowest wages in the country. Despite recent increases, Nova Scotia’s minimum wage remains the second lowest among all provinces in Canada. Other Atlantic provinces are not much farther ahead. This gap is expected to grow larger once 2024 living wage rates are calculated.
Data obtained from Statistics Canada show that one-third of workers in Atlantic Canada earn less than $20 an hour. The data from Statistics Canada dispel common misconceptions that those who would benefit from such an increase are predominantly teenagers or students. In reality, the vast majority of these workers are not students, are over twenty, and are employed in permanent, full-time jobs.
The findings highlight the urgent need for steep increases to the minimum wage for workers across Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador, and Prince Edward Island.
Atlantic Canadians need a raise: One-third of workers earn less than $20 an hour underscores the challenges faced by workers in Atlantic Canada, and the large gap between current minimum wages in Atlantic Canada and the living wages necessary to afford basic expenses, and calls on provincial governments across the region to ensure minimum wages keep pace with actual costs working households face to make ends meet. Accompanying Profiles on Low-Wage Work provide summaries of the data for each Atlantic province.
Click here for the fact sheet for workers in Nova Scotia
Click here for the fact sheet for workers in New Brunswick
Click here for the fact sheet for workers in Newfoundland & Labrador
Click here for the fact sheet for workers in Prince Edward Island
About the authors
Christine Saulnier
Christine Saulnier (she/her) is Director of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives-Nova Scotia. She has a doctorate in Political Science from York University. She leads the living wage calculations for communities across Atlantic Canada and serves as a co-author of the annual child and family poverty report cards for Nova Scotia. She has written extensively, and given commentary on a range of other public policy issues including fiscal policy, labour markets, and child care policy. She serves on the Steering Committee of Child Care Now Nova Scotia, and Campaign 2000 (national coalition to end child and family poverty). She served on the Board of the NS Health Coalition and Adsum for 10 years.
Kenya Thompson
Kenya Thompson (she/her) is a research associate with CCPA Nova Scotia, and PhD student at York University’s Department of Politics. She is also a research assistant on the Reimagining Care/Work Policies project, which aims to advance equitable and inclusive care/work policies in Canada. Find her on Twitter at @khftho
