The Saskatchewan Office of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives calculates that a family of four would require a living wage of $17.80 per hour for Regina and $18.95 per hour for Saskatoon in order to maintain a decent standard of living in each respective city. The living wage reflects what people need to support their families based on the actual costs of living in a specific community.
Even as the province is set to increase the minimum wage to $14 hour, record inflation over the past year has eaten into any gains these minimum wage hikes may have made with workers. As the living wage rate makes clear, the government’s target minimum wage rate of $15 per hour by 2024 was already inadequate in 2021, and even less so after almost a year and a half of punishing inflation.
The 2022 calculation shows that the Regina living wage family would have to spend an extra $4,029 on the same basket of goods that it purchased in 2021. For Saskatoon, expenses increased for the same basket of goods by $4,775 between 2021 to 2022. These increased expenses, coupled with reduced government transfers through programs like the Canada Worker Benefit and increased taxes conspired to see both the Regina and Saskatoon living wage rate increase significantly for 2022.
While the living wage calculation is based on the needs of two-parent families with young children, it would also support a family throughout life so that young adults are not discouraged from having children and older workers have some extra income as they age. The living wage gets families out of severe financial stress by lifting them out of poverty and providing a basic level of economic security. But it is also based on a conservative, bare-bones budget without the extras many of us take for granted.