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Saskatchewan’s minimum wage has gone up: Today it jumped from $15.35 to $15.70, adding $14 in a 40-hour workweek.
Despite the increase, Saskatchewan’s minimum wage remains the second-lowest in Canada, with only Alberta lower.
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Granted, Saskatchewan is known as a more affordable province.
For instance, earlier this year, Saskatchewan’s Labour Relations Minister Ken Cheveldayoff said, “Our low personal tax rates also continue to make our province a great place to live, work and raise a family.”
But according to Peter Gilmer, an advocate with the Regina Anti-Poverty Ministry, the updated minimum wage doesn’t keep pace with the cost of living.
“The costs for low-income people, the costs for basic necessities, are the costs that are rising the quickest,” he said.
He used the examples of food, housing, clothing, and utilities to explain how these basics — which people of all income levels depend on — are rising rapidly in price. Gilmer said Saskatchewan’s minimum wage hasn’t kept pace to support those increases.
“Over several years, we’ve been competing for the lowest minimum wage in the country, and there was a time a few decades back that we were regularly competing for the highest minimum wage in the country. So obviously, we’re in the wrong competition,” he said.
For Gilmer, the consequences of Saskatchewan’s historically lower minimum wage are clear.
“We’re looking at a circumstance where people are falling further and further behind,” he said.
“That’s showing up in ways such as having the highest child poverty rate of all the provinces and the greatest depths of poverty of all the provinces.”
Specifically, a report published by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives in February 2026 found Saskatchewan’s child poverty rate is 27.1 per cent.
According to Gilmer, a living wage in Saskatchewan’s major cities would be between $21.50 and $22.50, or roughly $6 to $7 higher than it is now.
Increasing minimum wage isn’t just a matter of morality, either. According to Gilmer, keeping people out of poverty is financially responsible.
According to the anti-poverty advocate, moving people out of deep poverty is cheaper than leaving them in it.
Another economic benefit, Gilmer said, is that those making minimum wage often spend their money locally rather than investing it beyond the province.
So, if minimum-wage employees have more money to spend, he argued, it boosts the local economy.
