A new report released today by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives – Manitoba highlights the growing gap between Manitoba’s minimum wage and the hourly wage that workers need to earn to meet their basic needs, said Manitoba Federation of Labour president Kevin Rebeck.  

The report calculates that a living wage in Winnipeg is $19.21/hr, up nearly a dollar since CCPA-MB’s last living wage calculation in 2022 ($18.34/hr). A living wage is the amount people need to earn to cover the basic needs of a family, such as rent and groceries. The province’s minimum wage now falls nearly $4 short of a living wage, meaning low-wage workers are falling further and further behind.

“No one should work full-time and still live in poverty, but sadly that is the reality for many minimum wage earners in Manitoba,” said Rebeck. “Working families are feeling squeezed by the rising costs at the gas pumps, grocery stores and in the cost of housing with the lowest wage workers being hit the hardest.”

In light of this new data, the MFL is calling on the Kinew government to take action with a three point plan to boost paycheques for low-wage workers:

1. Repeal Manitoba’s Pallister-era legislation that keeps minimum wage workers trapped below the poverty line by tying minimum wage increases to the previous calendar year’s inflation rate;

2. Introduce new legislation that commits the government to making the minimum wage a living wage; and

3. Make a significant minimum wage increase this upcoming spring to help low-wage workers catch up with inflationary pressures on their household budgets, similar to the special adjustments made last year by the previous provincial government.

“It is time for a new approach to minimum wage in our province, one that helps low-wage workers pay for groceries and make rent,” said Rebeck. “Right now, too many working families are struggling to meet their most basic needs because our minimum wage has not kept pace with the huge jump in the cost of living. We need this new government to commit to making our minimum wage a living wage.”