The Common Front for Social Justice says while this Friday’s minimum wage increase to $10.65/hr is a good first step, it’s not enough.
Provincial Secretary Chantal Landry says with the continual rise of cost of living, an increase in the minimum wage is necessary to keep up.
They are pushing for a $15 minimum wage, but say they don’t expect it immediately.
“We want it to be a plan towards that, a little bit more aggressively so that people have more purchasing power, can contribute more to the economy and not just feel like they’re struggling every month to make ends meet,” says Landry.
Landry says there is good news however, as the province has said after 2017 they will tie minimum wage increases to inflation.
“We have to get to a certain point before we can say indexing to that is enough, because right now it’s not enough,” says Landry. “There needs to be a few more steps that are a little bit more aggressive, we have to play catch up right now, not just maintenance.”
Landry says these piecemeal increases annually are not good enough to address poverty for the future.
“New Brunswick needs a plan, bottom line that’s what we want,” says Landry. “We want the government of New Brunswick to have a goal and lay out the plan because that’s what needs to happen, and not on a year-by-year basis, but a long term plan.”
At 40 hours of work a week, the minimum wage of $10.30/hr produced a yearly pre-tax income of $21,424.
With the new minimum wage of $10.65/hr, the yearly pre-tax income is $22, 152 – which means an increase of $728.
