The Saskatchewan Federation of Labour, University of Regina Students' Union, Canadian Federation of Students and the Regina Anti-Poverty Ministry have launched their Living Wage campaign to raise the minimum wage in the province to a living wage.

Details and ways you can help (including an online letter you can send to the Minimum Wage Review board) are found on www.living-wage.ca.

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Originally posted by shannifromregina:
Well they should raise the minumum wage because if you are a single parent you get more money on Social Services then you do working 160 hours a month Minumum wage here is 6.65 an hour which equals 1064 a month by the time you take taxes and stuff off are lucky if you get 900 a month. Please tell me how a family of 3 is to live on that. On social services you would get all your utilities paid, your rent and your medications... I would rather work then be on assistance however my prescriptions for the last week came to over 180 dollars. So how is a single parent to pay for all the incidentals that come along working minimum wage. You don't get all the medications that you need or you borrow the money knowing you can't pay it back. Governemt raise the damn wage.

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You are very right and I think a lot of people in Saskatchewan (Canada?) don't understand those realities because they don't here what it is like for people and families trying to live on $6.65 an hour. You should definitely go to the website listed by Kyall above and send a letter to the min. wage review board (you can even do it online!) so they can hear your story and hopefully the story of many others.

I REALLY hope this campaign is a huge success. I think it could be so important in improving the lives of so many people in th province!!!

And if you want to talk about those forms of social income, it is important to talk about the many costs of working: transport, proper clothing, meals outside the house etc. (Yes, people can brown-bag it, but it takes time and planning - and still winds up more expensive than eating in).

I don't think the Living Wage campaign is the same as the Guaranteed Annual Income campaign. They are rather different approaches to fighting poverty.

Here is the current SMIC for France (based on a 35-hour week):

1,154.13 EUR
Euro   =   1,882.21 CAD
Canada Dollars

Note that many skilled and professional jobs tend to be paid somewhat less in France than here. However, there are a lot of social benefits and "aides" available.

[ 12 August 2004: Message edited by: lagatta ]

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Olly, except for the GST rebate (a joke) the supplements you mention only apply to people with minor children, not all minimum-wage or low-paid workers.

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The NCBS gets paid to anyone with children under 18, so it's not just minor children. The OCCS in Ontario gets paid to anyone with children under 7 (which is a significant design flaw), so it is only minor children as you say. But, yes, your point is taken that single adult workers don't have access to those benefits. Of course, the cost of working for a family with children is also signficantly higher than for a single person, which is why those benefits were introduced to begin with.

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And if you want to talk about those forms of social income, it is important to talk about the many costs of working: transport, proper clothing, meals outside the house etc. (Yes, people can brown-bag it, but it takes time and planning - and still winds up more expensive than eating in).

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Absolutely, I agree. People don't often consider the costs of working are actually quite high, especially in urban areas as I mentioned. That is why I said these benefits combined with employment income are still too low.

I think one of the reasons is because we have a specific goal in mind for this campaign - influencing the minimum wage review board that on September 15th makes a recommendation to the government to raise the minimum wage. While there are business lobbyists and Saskatchewan Party members on the board who argue for freezing of the wage (or in some cases, decreasing it) we've also got supportive people lobbying to increase it.

It's really a one-action review board, that only makes one recommendation: what to raise the wage to. Last review, they raised it $0.65 in one year, which is fairly substantive - but then didn't raise it for two years.