It's official: Minimum wage isn't NEARLY enough to rent in Calgary

If you’ve been stressing over bills lately and not sure how to make ends meet, you’re not alone. A new study out of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives has found Canadians living on minimum wage cannot afford the cost of rent.

In Calgary, minimum wage is $15 an hour but the report found renters would need to make $21.42 an hour to afford a one-bedroom apartment and $25.37 an hour for a two-bedroom.

It looked at every single province and found minimum wage was not enough to cover rental costs, even in the three provinces with the highest minimum wages — BC, Ontario, and Alberta.

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Researchers calculated the income based on a 40-hour work week and spending no more than the recommended 30% of total income on housing.

What this means is even by living in Alberta and technically making more money than many Canadians in other provinces, living conditions are not necessarily better.

You can blame your landlord, though. The study highlights that extra money you’re making on your paycheck is actually going into their pockets instead of your own.

Researchers also looked at other Canadian cities and only three had one-bedroom rentals that were lower than minimum wage and all of them were in Quebec.