Residents in the Greater Toronto Area are going to need to make at least $25 per hour just to afford rising costs of living, new data reveals.
According to the Ontario Living Wage Network (OLWN), a living wage rate is defined as the before-tax income an adult would need to have to cover the expenses included in their family type. The report found that the average resident living in Toronto and the GTA must make at least $25.05 per hour to keep up with basic living costs, a $1.90 jump from last year’s rate of $23.15.
“A living wage is an effective tool to combat working poverty by making sure that employees can make ends meet where they live. By incorporating expenses that a worker must cover such as shelter, food, transportation and more, our living wages are much closer to reality than a politically set minimum wage,” the report said.
To reach its findings, the OLWN began by collecting data for the costs of basic goods and services for three types of households: two parents aged 35 and two children aged seven and three, a single parent with a seven-year-old child, and a single adult.
“The wage is then calculated for each of the three households, and a weighted average of these wages is taken based on the proportion of adults in Ontario in each type of family using data from the 2021 census,” the OLWN explained.
Goods and services include food, shelter, clothing and footwear, transportation, adult education, medical expenses, life and critical illness insurance, communications (internet and cellphone costs), child care, and other applicable expenses. In addition, it also considered expenses related to more than “just surviving,” such as modest vacation, culture and community activities.
These expenses were calculated for each household type in each country or district in Ontario. The county-level data is then grouped to the economic region level using population-weighted averages, with an additional four per cent added to the total level of expenses as a contingency.
Finally, to find the living wage, the network divided the earned income by 52 weeks in the year and 35 hours per week to come to an hourly living wage.
These are the 2023 living wages in Ontario, derived from Statistic Canada’s geographic concert of economic regions:
$25.05/hr in the Greater Toronto Area
$22.75/hr in the Grey Bruce Perth Huron Simcoe region
$21.95/hr in Ottawa
$20.90/hr in Dufferin Guelph Wellington Waterloo region
$20.80/hr in Hamilton
$20.60/hr in the East region
$19.80/hr in North region
$18.85/hr in London Elgin Oxford region
$18.65/hr in the Southwest region
The report mentions that the highest increase year-over-year belongs to Ottawa at 12 per cent, with a living wage of $21.95 from $19. 60 in 2022.
“The rising cost of living impacts those at the bottom of the wage spectrum the most. That’s why employers look to our living wage rates; it is a calculation that takes into account the real burdens that workers face much better than the politically-set minimum wage,” the report said.
Though minimum wage increased on Oct. 1 this year by 6.8 per cent to $16.55, the OLWN says a person living in the province will not be able to make ends meet working full-time at this wage.
