Burrill: Nova Scotia needs a $15 minimum wage

HALIFAX - NDP Leader Gary Burrill made the following statement about the Liberal government’s plan to increase the minimum wage to $12.95 on April 1, 2021:

“The pandemic has revealed how important so many minimum wage workers are to our communities. Grocery store workers, cleaning staff, gas station workers, and other low-wage workers provide essential services. They need to make enough to live. A small increase in the minimum wage, as proposed by this Liberal government, is insulting to those who have been making minimum wage while working on the frontlines of the pandemic. We need to increase the minimum wage to at least $15 an hour.”

Over the past two decades, minimum wage employees have become increasingly concentrated in large businesses. Nationally, the proportion of employees earning minimum wage in large companies has almost tripled since 1998.