The Costs of Accessibility
The Saskatchewan Office of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives’ living wage calculation for Regina and Saskatoon is a little different from past years. That’s because we are presenting two different living wage calculations for both Regina and Saskatoon this year.
Last year, we made the decision to not include the cost savings from the federal/provincial $10 per day daycare program due to the inaccessibility of the program in both major cities. We reasoned that it would be unfair to expect a family to get by on a living wage that was premised on a daycare subsidy that they might not be able to access. This year we take a different tact. While difficulties accessing child care spaces continues to frustrate families across Saskatchewan, we nevertheless wanted to show how important social programs can be to a working family’s bottom line. So, this year we release a living wage calculation based on a family that can access $10 per day daycare for their one pre-school child, versus one who cannot, and must pay for alternative types of private caregiving.
For Saskatoon, the 2023 living wage for a family with access to $10 per day child care is $18.50 per hour, a drop from the $18.90 we calculated last year. In Regina, the living wage is $18.05 for a family with access to $10 per day childcare, up from $17.90 in 2022.
However, were we to remove access to both these families from $10 per day child care, the amount they would need to earn to cover those increased expenses soars. For Regina, the living wage for those who cannot access the child care program would be close to $20 per hour, at $19.80. In Saskatoon, a family would have to earn $20.25 per hour to afford the added child care expenses.
These stark differences in income demonstrate the importance of public programs that control the costs that working families would otherwise absorb. As child care has long been in the top three of expenses for our living wage family along with food and shelter, programs that can take the bite out of those costs can give working families some much needed relief.
