Common Council’s Growth Committee is meeting again to find out ways to get more development in the city to increase the tax base and perhaps even the population.
Randy Hatfield of the Human Development Council has told councillors one way to generate more economic activity through greater consumer spending is through a living wage which is generally considered to be around 15 dollars an hour. Hatfield says it could be a dollar or two an hour below that with affordable childcare.
The minimum wage in New Brunswick is well below that at $10.65 an hour. It will go up to $11.00 an hour next year and be indexed after that.
The percentage of working poor in Saint John, according to Hatfield, is 8.7 per cent which is the highest percentage in the province and well above the national average.
