Ontario's minimum wage increases to $17.20 today

A representative with the Bank of Canada displays the polymer $5 and $10 bank notes alongside the $20, $50, and $100 during a press conference at the Bank of Canada in Ottawa on Tuesday, April 30, 2013. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick

Those earning minimum wage in Ontario will now make more money per hour.

The annual wage increase is tied to inflation and jumps to $17.20 per hour on Tuesday, marking a 3.9 per cent increase from the previous rate of $16.55 per hour.

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According to the province, the raise will result in an annual increase of up to $1,355 for a general minimum wage worker, who works 40 hours per week. In 2023, the province said there were 935,600 workers in Ontario earning at or below $17.20 per hour.

The increase will also extend to student minimum wages, which apply to workers under the age of 18 who work 28 hours a week or less when school is in session or during a school break or summer holidays. Those workers will make $16.20 per hour, up from $15.60 per hour, starting Tuesday.

Hunting, fishing and wilderness guides, whose minimum wage is based on blocks of time instead of by the hour, will now make $86.00 when they work fewer than five consecutive hours in a day – up from $82.85. They’ll make $172.05, previously $165,75, when they work more than five hours in a day, whether or not the hours are consecutive.

Finally, homeworkers, including those who perform paid work in their own homes (i.e. call centre employees, seamstresses), will be paid $18.90 per hour, up from $18.20 per hour.

After Tuesday’s increase goes into effect, Ontario will have the second highest provincial minimum wage in Canada, behind British Columbia’s rate of $17.40 per hour.

The federal minimum wage, which applies to the roughly 30,000 employees in the federally-regulated sector, including banks and airports, went up in April and is currently set at $17.30 per hour

Is $17.20 enough to survive in Toronto?

Minimum wage laws in Ontario have been around for more than 100 years and were designed to prevent workers from being exploited and not being paid, explains Craig Pickthorne, communications coordinator for the Ontario Living Wage Network (OLWN).

However, in an interview with CTV News Toronto, Pickthorne said while Ontario’s wage increase is “technically a good thing,” it’s not nearly enough, especially given the high cost of living in some of Ontario’s biggest cities.

“It just remains so far behind,” he said, referencing the OLWN’s “living wage,” which the network calculates by looking at the before-tax income needed to cover the cost of housing, food, and other necessities.

In November 2023, the network released its latest living wage data, which pegged the cost of living in Toronto at $25.05 per hour, the highest in the province.

“Even after the increase, you’re still going to be short of $7.85 an hour of being able to pay rent, to cover the expenses of food and transportation and childcare, and that equates to over $270 a week that you’re going to be short in making those ends meet,” Pickthorne said.

“When people can’t afford to pay their bills, they have to start making these terrible decisions about what they’re going to pay this month. ‘Is it going to be rent or are we going to buy food?’ Those kinds of things are really a manufactured scenario that we decide is okay, as a society, where we could decide to make an impact in affordability and also raise the minimum wages, or something that’s just even close to a living wage.”

The OLWN isn’t the only organization sounding the alarm about the cost of living crisis playing out in Toronto and across Ontario.

In July of last year, the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives said the “rental wage,” or the hourly wage needed to afford rent while working 40 hours a week while spending less than 30 per cent gross income on housing, was $33.62 per hour for a one-bedroom apartment and $40.03 for a two bedroom apartment in Toronto.

The OLWN has not yet released its living wage data for 2024, but Pickthorne confirmed it will be higher than last year’s.

“There have been years where it went up like 15 per cent, so it won’t be jumping that high, but it will be going up and go up every year, basically.”