OPINION | Yukon's minimum wage increase is a joke and an insult

Less than $10 a day.

That's the difference Yukon's minimum wage increase – which took effect April 1 – makes to people who work for the lowest possible wage in the territory; $9.60 more for a full day's work.

Anyone who lives in Yukon knows you can't even get a decent sandwich and a cup of coffee for under $10, but that's what this government is calling an "increase."

Under the previous minimum wage of $11.51 an hour, if you worked full time – eight hours a day, five days a week – you made $1,850 a month or around $24,000 a year before taxes. Under the new wage of $12.71, an increase of $1.20, you would make around $2,030 a month or $26,400 a year.

That's not only a joke, it's an insult. It's also proof positive the government is out of touch with what it means to be working poor in the territory.

The Yukon Anti-Poverty Coalition (YAPC) calculates the living wage in Whitehorse at $18.57 per hour – which means a difference of $1,015 per month, before tax, for minimum wage workers.

That's a huge discrepancy, which can be seen by comparing Yukon to its southern neighbour of B.C., where the minimum wage is $12.65 and the living wage in Prince George — a city comparable to Whitehorse — is calculated at $16.51.

B.C. is set to raise its minimum wage to $13.85 an hour as of June 1, and to $15.20 an hour by 2021. Yukon does not have any such schedule, although the Yukon Employment Standards Board has recommended increasing minimum wage to $15.12 by 2021, a suggestion the government has yet to accept. Yukon has the lowest minimum wage of the territories.

Living in poverty

A living wage is calculated based on what a standardized family – two kids and two adults – needs to maintain a reasonable standard of living when both adults are working full time. The living wage in Whitehorse translates to a household salary of $77,250 a year before taxes; two minimum wage earners in that same imaginary family bring home only about $52,800 a year.

One could argue the "family" proposed by the living wage is an outdated mode of calculation – heteronormative and patriarchal – and it also makes comparing minimum and living wage more complicated than simply equating them.

One can see, however, that it's difficult to survive on minimum wage as a single person – or a single parent – when you know that, according to YAPC's 2018 living wage report, 16 per cent of Whitehorse households and 41 per cent of single-mother households were living in poverty, as of 2012.

Data from the 2016 census show 33.5 per cent of Yukoners make $30,000 a year or less.

Minister of Community Services John Streicker said at the time the wage increase was announced that most lower-wage earners in the territory aren't working for minimum wage, but at a rate of $13 to $15 an hour – a difference of $0.29 to $2.29.

A recent informal analysis of the kinds of jobs available on job board Yuwin during a two-week period found the majority paid between $15 to $20 an hour.

If that's what the market will bear – and one assumes it is, as that's what it's already paying – why not just make the minimum wage $15 an hour right now? Why keep it so low?

Minimum wage is essentially what an hour of a human life is deemed to be worth at its base rate. It's the currency on which the entire economy turns; when you set a minimum wage that does not allow an earner a decent standard of living – healthy food, reasonable housing and freedom from the fear and strain poverty generates – you are stating that you do not feel that life is worth these things.

How many people are actually working at that rate is irrelevant to its function as a base rate for what work – and the quality of life of a worker – is worth.

This column is part of CBC's Opinion section. For more information about this section, please read this editor's blog and our FAQ.