Ontario's minimum wages relegates workers to living standards far below the poverty line

Edited by Iain Mackenzie

About one in six people in Ontario currently lives in poverty.

"Ontario is a wealthy province and yet a shrinking social-safety net and sluggish economy have led to increasing numbers of people living in poverty. One in four workers in Ontario-more than one million people-earns poverty wages," documents the Coalition of Community Health and Resource Centres of Ottawa.

Ontario's minimum wage has not kept up with increases in the cost of living.

At the current $8 per hour wage rate, a single parent working full-time, living in Thunder Bay, would have an income $6,676 below the poverty line for 2005. A single person working full-time, living in Ottawa, would have an income $5,178 below the poverty line for 2005. To earn wages above the poverty line, a person working full time needs to earn more than $10 per hour.

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