Over 90 Percent of Minimum-Wage Earners Don’t Live in Poor Households: New Study

Data raise questions about whether increasing the minimum wage really helps the working poor, says study author

Canadian one-dollar coins are pictured in a file photo. The Canadian Press/Jonathan Hayward

The vast majority of minimum-wage earners in Canada don’t live in low-income households, and most are teens or young adults living with family, a new study finds, raising questions about the effectiveness of higher wage floors in reducing poverty.

Conducted by the Fraser Institute and titled “Who Earns the Minimum Wage in Canada,” the study found that 92.3 percent of the country’s minimum-wage earners live in households that are above Statistics Canada’s low-income cutoff line. More than half (53 percent) are aged between 15 and 24 in 2019, the latest year of available data, and among this group, 84.1 percent live with their parents or other relatives.