With New Brunswick raising the minimum wage to $15.30/hour and rolling out a handout of $300, a one-time payment known as the New Brunswick Workers Benefit, we must ask: why is our government distracting us from seeing the elephant in the room? Why are they applying a small bandage to the festering wound of poverty?
We accept poverty as a given. Although many believe that poverty is unfair, we are equally persuaded by a mentality that says people can and should work themselves out of poverty. A national report by the Angus Reid Institute finds that roughly half of Canadians believe that “a good work ethic is all you need to escape poverty.”
The ‘work ethic trap’ still does not pan out because the meagre minimum wage increase does not lift one far from the poverty line. It is also important to recognize that this wage increase will only promote further inflation, since there is no support for small or large businesses to absorb this shift.
If someone receives $15.30 per hour minimum wage in a full-time job, they will earn $26,000 a year at best, just above the poverty line assessed at $24,395, according to the Maytree Foundation. Do not forget that low-income figures have not been adjusted for over a decade and the reality of someone living at or below the poverty line in 2024 is bleak.
To add insult to injury, the workers benefit handout is a drop in the ocean, that is not attainable for those most in need, i.e. social assistance recipients, who currently receive less than a third of what would be counted as living at the poverty line.
We are stuck in a system that promotes enforced poverty where the population of working poor is growing exponentially, social assistance recipients are beyond imaginable poverty and charitable and non-profit organizations have become band aid distributors in a hospital emergency room. Meanwhile, we are reminded to work harder and be grateful for a government handout that would only stretch for groceries for a week for a small family.
We wonder if growing poverty rates will shift public sentiments away from the “just work your way out of poverty” refrain.
Presently 1 in 5 New Brunswick households worry about putting food on the table, according to Food Banks Canada. Perhaps this will be the catalyst to shift the public narrative on who experiences poverty, and who needs support.
It is our hope that this shift will include a call to the government to improve social assistance programs, invest in affordable housing, and address the overwhelming issue of poverty overall, rather than taking credit for an inadequate minimum wage increase and a one-off pittance cheque.
Christine Caissie, Jessica Doucette and Milda Titford are third year social work students at St. Thomas University.
