G and M reporter is doing a 5 part Canadian "Nickel and Dimed" by having
reporter Jan Wong work as a minimum-waged domestic. Note her unawareness of
what working minimum wage is really like! On the other hand, her passionate
response is hopeful- dr

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http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20060331.wxwong01/BNStory/Front/home

"Before I set out on this assignment, I assumed $7.75 an hour, at 40 hours
a week, was a living wage. I began crunching numbers. My monthly pre-tax
income would be $1,240, or $14,880 a year. To my horror, I realized I
wouldn't even reach halfway to the so-called "low-income cut-off line" of
$31,126 set by Statistics Canada for an urban family of three.

I also assumed an increase in the minimum wage meant that the minimum wage
had actually increased. Wrong again. Over the past 30 years, the minimum
wage declined 13 per cent in real terms. In 1976, Ontario's minimum wage
was $2.65 an hour, or $8.93 in today's dollars. In the meantime, Canada's
standard of living soared 43 per cent, in real terms, from 1981 to 2003. In
other words, the rich got richer. And Metro Maids? I was about to find out.

I had never considered Canada to be a poor country. But it turns out that
despite ever-higher educational levels and productivity, we have one of the
biggest proportions of low-paid workers in the world, defined as those
earning less than two-thirds of a country's median annual earnings. In
Canada, where the median hourly wage for those age 25 and over is $17.65,
about 21 per cent of the work force is low-paid, versus 26 per cent in the
United States, the world's richest country. In European countries, the
proportion ranges from 7 per cent in Finland to 13 per cent in Germany.

By another benchmark many economists accept - a wage of $10 or less an hour
- one in six Canadians working full-time earns low pay, according to a 2005
report by the Canadian Policy Research Networks, an Ottawa-based
think-tank. Surprise! Women dominate these jobs.

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