On May 1, 200,700 Quebec workers will see their minimum wage increase by 0.50 cents, from $15.25 to $15.75 per hour. The good news was confirmed this Wednesday, January 31, by the Minister of Labour, Jean Boulet. 

To read also: 

The economy at the heart of a major discussion at the CCIVS

Pierre Fitzgibbon discusses the economy with local entrepreneurs

The economic uncertainty currently affecting the retail and food service industries prompted the Quebec government to make this decision. These two sectors are experiencing difficult times, sometimes resulting in permanent closures. 

More than half of the 111,200 employees affected by this minimum wage increase are women. During his speech, Mr. Boulet specified that Quebec hopes to maintain the minimum wage at around 50% of the average wage. Next May, it will exceed this threshold to reach 50.8%. 

Collectif pour un Québec sans pauvreté not satisfied 

Asked to react to the Minister of Labour's announcement, the Collectif pour un Québec sans pauvreté (Collective for a Poverty-Free Quebec) is dismayed that the Quebec government has once again decided to let down "workers at the bottom of the ladder who, even if they work full-time, will remain in poverty."

In Quebec, the Market Basket Measure threshold is currently estimated at $24,200 for a single person, says the organization. This is the amount needed to cover basic needs (housing, food, transportation, clothing and other necessities). We're talking about the bare minimum here, what it takes to achieve "a modest standard of living", according to Statistics Canada.With an hourly rate of $15.75, a single person working at minimum wage full-time (35 hours a week) will have barely more disposable income. Based on 2023 tax parameters, this would be around $25,500.

"With such a minimum wage, we shouldn't be surprised to see the number of workers using food bank services continue to rise " , points out Collectif spokesperson Virginie Larivière. According to the latest HungerCount, people whose main source of income is employment accounted for 18.5% of people helped by food banks in 2023.

"Isn't this the kind of statistic that should alarm the government?The Prime Minister himself acknowledged, at the end of 2022, that it must be difficult to live in dignity with a minimum wage of $18 an hour.How can his government dare, in 2024, to announce such a ridiculous increase, which will bring the minimum wage to just $15.75 an hour?", adds the organization in a press release. 

How much would it take to lift people out of poverty?

For the Collectif, it's obvious that full-time work should at the very least enable workers to lift themselves out of poverty; enabling them to live beyond the bare minimum, to save, to deal with the unexpected, to have leisure and to make choices, it believes. 

"Two indicators give us an idea of how much it would take to live out of poverty," Virginie Larivière continues.In 2023, the MFR-60 was estimated at $33,700 and the Sustainable Income, calculated by the Institut de recherche et d'informations socioéconomiques, at $32,200 for a single person (amounts indexed to the CPI). For a single person to have equivalent disposable income working 35 hours a week, the minimum wage would have to be somewhere between $22 and $23.

"As we can see, there's a huge gap between what the government is proposing ($15.75 an hour) and what it would take to lift minimum-wage workers out of poverty (between $22 and $23 an hour).Clearly, in his eyes, some people deserve "paying jobs", but others deserve to remain in poverty, even while working full-time."