Canadian health news — for a minimum wage worker, how much does it cost to make a nutritious meal? Take a meat eater who wants a carb and a vegetable on the plate, plus something to drink. Working at Ontario’s $10.25 minimum wage, a meal of chicken, potatoes, and carrots with milk — priced on Canada’s average food prices — runs about $16. That’s just over an hour and a half of work. For one meal.
By Maplestime News Desk | Toronto, Ontario | September 19, 2026
Sources: Canadian Medical Association, Statistics Canada, Health Providers Against Poverty, Workers Action Centre, DEEP Centre | Last updated: September 19, 2026
Key Takeaways
- A basic nutritious meal cost a minimum wage worker about $16 — over 1.5 hours of work at Ontario’s $10.25 minimum wage
- In Toronto, the average bachelor rented for $873 a month — 85 hours of minimum-wage work, over half of full-time hours
- A 2013 CMA report found that among people earning less than $40,000 a year, only 40% said they lived in good health
- A Hamilton Spectator series found a 21-year life expectancy gap between rich and poor areas of the city
- The CMA estimated that 20% of Canada’s $200 billion in health care spending goes to socio-economic disparities
- The same CMA report recommended a basic annual income as a step to reduce poverty-related health problems
The Math of Being Poor
Apply the minimum-wage test to housing. In Toronto, where the average rental rate was $873 a month, a minimum wage worker had to work 85 hours a month just to pay for a bachelor apartment. That’s slightly more than half a month of regular full-time hours. Whatever’s left goes to food, utilities, and everything else.
With that math, it’s easy to understand why people would take the crappier, cheaper apartment — or eat off the dollar menu at McDonald’s.
And those are just the averages. The same person on minimum wage in the far North faces much higher food costs — milk can run $9 or $10 once you get into the Arctic circle. Or you might only get 20 hours a week at your minimum wage job instead of 40, topping up with income subsidies to get by.
It is expensive to take good care of yourself in Canada. And the real cost? Human lives.
Poverty Makes You Sick — Literally
A Canadian Medical Association report from 2013 found that among people who made less than $40,000 a year, only 40 per cent said they lived in good health. A 2013 Hamilton Spectator series on health care found a 21-year life expectancy gap between rich and poor areas of the city.
Twenty-one years. Same city. Different postal code, different lifespan.
Poverty can be directly tied to multiple diseases, medical professionals argue, including cardiac diseases and diabetes.
And it costs everyone who pays taxes. Of the $200 billion spent on health care in Canada, the CMA estimated that 20 per cent is spent because of socio-economic disparities. That’s $40 billion a year treating the health consequences of poverty.
This is why ensuring everyone has enough income to provide for themselves and their families isn’t charity — it’s health policy.
The $14 Now Campaign
To that end, on January 14, as part of an Ontario-wide day of action, Health Providers Against Poverty went to the Ontario legislature to call on lawmakers to raise the minimum wage to $14.
Twitter was taken over by the hashtag #14now, and at the Toronto-based Workers Action Centre — one of the organizations that led the day of action — staff were swamped with calls of support.
“It was a really good way to show that it’s not just one sector calling for a minimum wage increase,” says Sonia Singh, an organizer at the Toronto Workers Action Centre. “It was great to see health providers come out to really clearly make the links between low-income and health.”
She believes thousands of people signed petitions calling on the Ontario government to raise the minimum wage, though she couldn’t give a specific number since petitions went directly to legislators.
But raising the minimum wage may be only one part of the puzzle. “People are working in temporary, precarious jobs and they don’t always have enough hours to qualify for Employment Insurance,” Singh explains. “So they are forced to go on social assistance.”
The Basic Income Idea
That’s why the idea of a basic annual income (BAI) could fill the gap people fall into when they’re not working or can’t find full-time work. Proponents would have it replace welfare and other income supplements — arguing that when people don’t have to worry about buying necessities, it’s easier to re-enter the workforce.
“In the long-term, the BAI also provides for those who choose to re-skill or upgrade their qualifications and thus could provide a real, tangible long-term benefit to our workforce,” explains Dan Herman, Executive Director of the DEEP Centre, a Waterloo-based economic policy think tank.
Herman believes BAI would have positive impacts on the economy and health care — savings generated by fewer people accessing health care could go directly back into the BAI.
The CMA’s 2013 report actually recommended BAI as one of the steps to reduce poverty-related health problems. And on the same day as the Raise the Minimum Wage campaign, a quieter Twitter campaign led by the Basic Income Pilot project took place, letting users ask questions about the program’s feasibility.
“A basic income takes us to the next level,” agrees Singh. “But raising the minimum wage is still incredibly important, if only as a first step towards providing fair wages for everybody.”
Herman recognizes it could be a struggle to get Canadians on board with a project that gives everybody money. “Inherently most of us aren’t keen on giving someone something for nothing,” he says. “However, given the benefits seen on health and social outcomes, and the potential for significant administrative savings, the evidence tells us it’s actually a very good public investment.”
And for the hypothetical minimum wage worker, it could mean the difference between making the choice they have to — and the healthy one.
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Maplestime will provide updates on health, wages, and the cost of living in Canada as announcements are made.
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Is a basic income the answer to poverty-driven illness — or should employers just pay a living wage in the first place? Tell us in the comments. And share this with every Canadian who thinks poverty is just a money problem.
