{"id":640185,"date":"2026-05-01T06:12:15","date_gmt":"2026-05-01T06:12:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/640185\/"},"modified":"2026-05-01T06:12:15","modified_gmt":"2026-05-01T06:12:15","slug":"quebec-minimum-wage-hike-will-keep-workers-in-poverty-study","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/640185\/","title":{"rendered":"Quebec minimum-wage hike will keep workers in poverty: study"},"content":{"rendered":"

When Quebec raises its minimum wage Friday, the increase will come nowhere close to lifting the lowest-wage workers out of poverty, warns a study released Thursday.<\/p>\n

As of Friday, Quebec workers will be entitled to a minimum pay of $16.60 per hour \u2014 a 3.1 per cent increase from the previous $16.10 baseline. For tip earners, the minimum wage will be set at $13.30 per hour.<\/p>\n

The share of Quebecers earning minimum wage is small: just 4.8 per cent of workers fell in that category in 2025, a report from Universit\u00e9 de Sherbrooke found.<\/p>\n

Friday\u2019s bump will leave workers across the province well below the income rate needed to escape poverty, according to the Institut de recherche et d\u2019informations socio\u00e9conomiques, a Montreal think tank.<\/p>\n

After taxes and government benefits, the study says the average full-time minimum-wage worker will take home $27,647 per year \u2014 just two-thirds of the $41,585 a single person needs to live in Montreal.<\/p>\n

Housing costs are the biggest driver of unaffordability in Montreal, said Eve-Lyne Couturier, the study\u2019s author. A single Montrealer now needs around $18,400 for housing, the study estimates, while a family of four requires $26,600.<\/p>\n

A higher minimum wage and more government support could help lift workers out of poverty, Couturier said. <\/p>\n

\u201cBut if we only do that without tackling the reasons that the cost of living is increasing non-stop, we\u2019re only responding to half the problem.\u201d<\/p>\n

Governments need to work to bring down the cost of living, the researcher argued, especially the cost of housing.<\/p>\n

\u201cActing on non-market housing to decrease the cost of housing would have a significant effect on the budget required to escape poverty,\u201d Couturier said, stressing a need to offer \u201chousing that isn\u2019t speculative.\u201d<\/p>\n

Investments in public transit, which reduce the need for a car, and measures to lower the cost of groceries would also reduce poverty, she said.<\/p>\n

The minimum wage wasn\u2019t deemed high enough to keep workers out of poverty in any of the seven cities studied. In Trois-Rivi\u00e8res, where the cost of living is lowest, the study found a single person still needs to earn $33,249 to avoid poverty.<\/p>\n

By the end of 2026, Quebec will have the fifth-highest minimum wage of the 10 Canadian provinces. At $18.25 per hour, British Columbia will offer the highest minimum wage, while Alberta sets its baseline at $15 per hour \u2014 the lowest in the country.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Profile<\/a><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\tI’ve reported for The Gazette since 2024. I love covering a good politics story, but any day I tell Montrealers something new about the world around them feels like a good one. Got a tip for me? Email me at jawilson@postmedia.com\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When Quebec raises its minimum wage Friday, the increase will come nowhere close to lifting the lowest-wage workers…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":640186,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[49,48,295,66],"class_list":["post-640185","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-environment","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/640185","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=640185"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/640185\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/640186"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=640185"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=640185"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=640185"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}