A recent report indicated that low-wage earners can no longer rent a modest apartment without spending more than a third of their salary on housing costs since last year.

Additionally, the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives released a study on July 18, stating that rental rates were significantly higher than minimum wages in every province as of October 2022.

The analysis included one-bedroom and two-bedroom rents, which account for 33% and 50% of all housing units, as the report mentioned.

Chief economist David Macdonald and political economy expert Ricardo Tranjan noted in the study that property owners capture the "lion's share" of wages through high rents, and even in the provinces with higher minimum wages—British Columbia, Ontario, and Alberta—these increases have not led to better living conditions.

The researchers in the report believe that wage increases, for which people have fought, should improve the material conditions of working families rather than flow back into the pockets of the property-owning class.

The study also stated that low-wage earners in most Canadian cities spend most of their money on rent and live in very small units.

The largest gaps between minimum wage and the rent required for a one-bedroom apartment were found in Vancouver and Toronto.

In these two cities, the rent for a one-bedroom unit was double the minimum wage set at that time, and the rent for a two-bedroom unit was, on average, more than double the minimum wage.

On June 1, the minimum wage in British Columbia increased to $16.75 per hour from $15.65.

In Ontario, the minimum wage is scheduled to rise to $16.55 per hour on October 1 from $15.50. The cities where the rent for a one-bedroom unit was below the minimum wage are Sherbrooke, Trois-Rivières, and Saguenay in Quebec.

The study also noted that affordability for rental housing is declining.

In Sherbrooke, for example, the report stated that the minimum wage in 2018 exceeded the rent for a one-bedroom unit by 18%, compared to 9% in 2022.

The number of hours at minimum wage required to pay rent for a two-bedroom unit also increased between 2018 and 2022.

Finally, the report mentioned that the largest share of the earnings of working-class families, for which they worked hard, is now flowing from employers to property owners, making the rich richer and pushing renters further into poverty.

Consequently, the authors pointed out at least three factors that make rents extremely high for low-wage earners, including wage suppression policies, a reduced supply of rental housing, and poorly regulated rental markets.