Manitoba’s minimum wage to go up 40 cents October 1

Minimum wage will be rising in Manitoba, workers will see a 40-cent increase, raising minimum wage to $16.40 staring Oct. 1. But one labour group says it’s not nearly enough.

“Right now, Manitoba has a working core problem. Over 40,000 workers make minimum wage and are living below the poverty line, that means minimum wage isn’t working and that the system is broken,” said Kevin Rebeck, the president of the Manitoba Federation of Labour.

Rebeck says a living wage is about $20 an hour for Manitobans, just to meet their basic needs. And while he acknowledges the 2026 provincial budget does include some affordability measures, he believes boosting the minimum wage to a living wage level would do far more to help workers.

“We are all facing a cost-of-living crisis here, and we’re seeing our grocery bills go up, our gas go up, our rent go up, and what we’re really needing to do is to be able to make ends meet,” he explained.

Isabelle Hutchins is a high school student, currently working a minimum wage job. She’ll be going to university next year, and with tuition increases up to 4 per cent announced in last week’s budget, she’s worried about how she’ll be able to afford it.

“$16 for me right now is good. I don’t know how that’s going to change next year though cause I am planning to go to university, where I won’t be living with my parents, so I’ll have more like cost and living expenses,” said Hutchins.

Minister of Labour, Malaysia Marcelono, noted to CityNews that this isn’t the first minimum wage increase the NDP has implemented.

“We’ve actually, with this increase coming up in October, this is going to be the fourth time that we raised the minimum wage since we got into office. So, our government’s focusing on affordability measures for Manitobans and our budget 2026 has a lot of those measures in it because we are here to stand with workers and workers families,” said Marcelino.

Rebeck says, “I hear critics of people who make minimum wage saying, ‘Well, they just need to go and get a better-paying job, or they should go to school to get training.’ Well, when your school costs are going up and up and up. How and when are you supposed to do that?”