Premier Rachel Notley at Transcend Coffee in Edmonton on Friday, April 15, 2016. Photo from Government of Alberta
Raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour was a key plank in the Alberta New Democratic Party’s 2015 election platform. At the time, Alberta was tied for the lowest minimum wage in Canada ($10.20 per hour) and had the dubious distinction of having the highest level of income inequality and the largest gender income gap.
“All in all, minimum-wage hikes don’t hurt our economy, they help more working Albertans share in the province’s prosperity.”
With staged, pre-announced annual increases in 2015-2018, the NDP government increased Alberta’s minimum wage to $15 an hour — the highest in the country — as of October 1, 2018. Adjusting for inflation, this is about a 40 per cent increase over a 36-month period.
Any proposal to increase the minimum wage by any amount in any province seems to be met with dire warnings of big job losses and impending economic doom. In Alberta, the government’s actions have generated considerable public debate, some bold predictions, and the proliferation of myths of who makes minimum wage and whether minimum wage hikes correlate with employment effects (i.e. job losses or gains). MORE
County Sustainability Group 