A look at how much workers need to earn to make ends meet in Toronto

You’ll need much more than the minimum wage to make ends meet across the province — but it’s especially bad in the GTA, a new report has found.

 

Workers in Toronto need to make $26 an hour — nearly $9 more than current the minimum wage — to make a living, the Ontario Living Wage Network (OLWN) reported.

 

The latest figures are a 3.7 per cent increase from last year, and come just after Ontario’s annual inflationary increase to the minimum wage that saw a bump from $16.55 an hour up to 17.20 an hour starting Oct. 1.

 

That means minimum wage workers in the GTA — even after this current inflationary increase to the minimum wage — would need a 51 per cent wage boost to meet this year’s living wage.

 

“You can’t live on minimum wage anywhere in the province and certainly not in Toronto where the difference is the highest,” Craig Pickthorne, the director of communications for the OLWN, said.

What is a living wage?

 

The living wage rate is calculated based on a before-tax income averaged between wages needed for different family types: a single adult, a single parent and a family of four. The living costs are calculated based on select goods and services, the largest of which are shelter costs, food, transportation and child care, Pickthorne, explained. The calculation also includes government benefits and income taxes that might apply to the adults.

Another measure on livable wages from the Wellesley Institute, a non-profit think tank researching health equity, found that single, working-age Torontonians need to make between $61,654 and $83,680 in order to “thrive” in Toronto.

 

Part of that broadening gap between what the lowest income workers make and what it costs to live in the city has been driven by food and rent costs.

 

An October report from Food Banks Canada found that over two million Canadians turned to food banks for help in March alone. That record number of Ontarians who turned to food banks came even as the Bank of Canada cut its overnight lending rate for a third consecutive time in early September, citing falling inflation.

 

A separate report from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives in July 2023 found that workers would need to earn $33.60 an hour to afford a one-bedroom apartment in Toronto — nearly double the newly increased minimum wage.

How does the living wage compare across the province?

The cost-of-living and the living wage is the highest in the GTA, with Western Ontario communities, along Lake Huron, facing the second highest cost-of-living requiring a $23.05 an hour living wage.

 

The lowest living wage in the province is in the London region, where $19.50 an hour is enough to get by, though that is still $2.30 more than the current minimum wage.

 

• Grey-Bruce-Perth-Huron-Simcoe Region: $23.05
• Eastern Ontario: $21.65
• Dufferin-Guelph-Wellington-Waterloo Region: $21.30
• Hamilton: $21.30
• Brant-Haldimand-Norfolk-Niagara Region: $20.90
• North: $20.30
• Southwestern Ontario: $19.85
• London-Elgin-Oxford Region: $19.50

 

Do we need a livable wage?

The minimum wage is no longer jobs for teenagers, Pickthorne said. Wide swaths of newcomer Canadians, women and people from marginalized groups work these jobs.

 

That’s backed up by the most recent data from Statistics Canada in 2018 — minimum wage jobs were increasingly being held by immigrants, women and those over 25 since 1998.

 

Because the minimum wage isn’t enough to match the cost of living in Toronto, people who rely on these jobs need a second job or gig work, Pickthorne explained, which can lead to worsening health outcomes and less time for career advancement.

 

“You’re just holding on to these multiple jobs to survive,” Pickthorne added, and noted that the living wage calculation doesn’t account for down payment savings or student debt payments, things that might weigh even further on low-income workers.

Higher wages, within limits, can mean positive ripple effects for the rest of the economy, Anil Verma, a professor of human resource management at U of T’s Rotman School of Management, said.

 

“Generally, employers who pay more, they get more value out of the work of the employee,” he said. “That is a very positive thing for our economy and for our society because we become a more value-added economy and have higher standards of living for everyone.”

 

Part of that might require adopting different minimum wages for different areas, Verma said, which is difficult in Ontario where cities have no power to implement local minimum wages.

“Part of the idea of setting a minimum wage and poverty level and living wage and or a driving range is … so that we actually have healthy people and healthy families,” Kwame McKenzie, CEO of the Wellesley Institute, said.

 

Otherwise, society bears the costs of failing to provide for workers in other ways, he added.

 

“You’re going to be paying for it with illness … with mental health issues … with substance use,” he said. “You have to understand what the thresholds are and to be able to set up a society which properly looks after people.”

 

 

 

 

This article was first reported by The Star