Photo of a Vietnamese garment factory in 2012 from the ILO Asia-Pacific
Inequality and poverty
HALIFAX and SAINT JOHN—In order to earn a living wage, a person working a full-time, full-year job must earn $21.80 in Halifax, $19.55 in Antigonish, $17.65 in Cape Breton, $16.80 in Bridgewater and $19.55 in Saint John, according to a new report released today by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives’ Nova Scotia office and the Saint John Human Development Council.
The living wage was first calculated in Atlantic Canada in 2015 (Halifax). Antigonish was added in 2016 and Saint John, New Brunswick in 2018. Last year, we calculated the living wage rate for St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador. This year we have added two more Nova Scotia communities: Bridgewater and the Cape Breton Regional Municipality. The calculation of the living wage provides communities with the following information:
The COVID-19 infection rate for prisoners in federal penitentiaries is nine times higher than the general infection rate in Canada. Meanwhile, social movements across North America are calling for substantive law enforcement reform and the dismantling of systemic racism. Together, these developments call the prison system into question.
In 2001, CCPA-Manitoba published a report titled The Minimum Wage and a Tipping Wage: A Survey of People Who Work At or Near the Minimum Wage in Manitoba. Researchers gathered data from 70 workers making minimum wage. The report concluded that minimum wage was insufficient to provide workers with anything more than a ‘subsistence wage’ and did not reflect the cost of living.
Photo by Alma Ayon, Flickr Creative Commons
Illustration by Michael DeForge
It has been six months since we shut down the economy to all but essential activities in an effort to contain the spread of COVID-19. Federal and many provincial emergency measures introduced since then, though imperfect and unevenly available across Canada, have stabilized incomes and bought governments time to figure out what comes next.
The summer issue of the Monitor features two previously published reports on the crisis in Canada's nursing homes, one from the CCPA's national office, Re-imagining Long-term Residential Care in the COVID-19 Crisis, and one from the CCPA-BC,
Reviewed in this article:
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