N.S. affordability crisis deepens as gap between living wage, minimum wage grows: report
A new report indicates Nova Scotia’s minimum wage is getting increasingly more difficult for people to live on, as the rising cost of basic necessities continues to outpace pay increases.
The report, released Thursday, said the living wage is $7.85 to $11.59 higher than what the minimum wage will be next month.
“Working people deserve to work to live, not just live to work,” the report said. “The cost of living is making that even harder.”
According to the report, the living wage is now $26.50 in the Halifax area, $25.40 for the Annapolis Valley, $25.05 for southern Nova Scotia, $24.30 for northern Nova Scotia, and $22.85 for Cape Breton.
On average, those numbers are 14 per cent higher than last year’s living wage calculations.
“These year-over-year increases are the most significant we have seen since we began calculating the living wage for Halifax in Nova Scotia in 2015,” said Christine Saulnier, the report’s author and director of the Nova Scotia chapter of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, in a release.
“Such unprecedented increases are due to overall increases to the costs of living, for shelter and food, in particular.” |Read more https://globalnews.ca/news/9942951/ns-living-wage-report-2023-ccpa/|
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