Statement by MFL President Kevin Rebeck in response to Manitoba’s minimum wage increase to $16.40 set for October 1:

The small 40 cent increase to the minimum wage announced today falls well short of what minimum wage earners need to afford essentials like groceries and rent.

No one should work full time and still live in poverty, but that is the harsh reality for many minimum wage earners in Manitoba, because of our minimum wage falls well below a living wage.

According to calculations by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives-Manitoba, workers in Winnipeg need to earn $19.77 an hour just to meet their basic needs.

While the provincial government’s recent budget includes some affordability measures that will benefit Manitoba’s lowest wage workers, including free bus passes for youth, free menstrual products at work and free child care for low income families, boosting the minimum wage to a living wage level would do far more to help these workers and add hundreds of dollars to their paycheques.

The punishing price increases in groceries, housing and other essentials are something that all working families are dealing with, but the cost of living crisis is hitting our lowest wage workers the hardest.

We encourage the provincial government to get rid of Brian Pallister’s minimum wage law that keeps minimum wage workers trapped below the poverty line. Instead, the provincial government should create its own plan to lift minimum wage workers out of poverty.