BARRHEAD - The average living wage in Barrhead is $24.50 and hour, according to Alberta's Living Wage Network (ALWN).
The ALWN is a network of community organizations and municipalities that aims to advance Alberta's coordinated living wage movement. The network assists communities in calculating their annual living wage and has certified more than 100 living wage employers in the province.
The ALWN defines a living wage as the hourly wage a worker needs to earn to cover the "basic necessities and participate in their community".
The Barrhead living wage is an average of multiple-family make-ups, including a family of four with two children, ages three and seven, parents working full-time, a single parent with a seven-year-old and someone single. The study also assumes all adults are 35 years old and work 35 hours a week full-time.
The living wage for a family of four with two working adults is $25.10 an hour, while a single person living alone is $22.87, and a single parent is $26.94.
County of Barrhead Reeve Doug Drozd suggested at the Nov. 26 council meeting that ALWN's figures needed to be more accurate as its 2024 Alberta Living Wage report ranked the living wage needed to live in the community as the second highest of the 21 ALWN communities.
Barrhead and District Community Family Support Service (FCSS) Karen Pronishen gave councillors a brief overview of the report as part of her presentation of the not-for-profit society's 2025 budget.
Although Pronishen understands why people might think the network's figures are skewed, she believes the numbers are a fair representation of Barrhead's living wage.
"The people who do this are economists," she told the Barrhead Leader on Nov. 28.
Pronishen also noted that the ALWN officials did their calculations when visiting each community, and members could witness their methodology.
However, she admitted that Barrhead joined the network late, so the community's figures might not have been as accurate as they might have been.
Food
Specifically, she noted that the estimates on the food side might not reflect the actual costs.
ALWN bases food costs on 2019 Health Canada's National Nutritious Food Basket (NNFB), adapted by Alberta Health Services (AHS). It represents the cost of a healthy diet that meets nutrition recommendations and reflects the population's food habits and purchasing patterns.
The NNFB includes a mix of fresh, frozen, and minimally processed foods that anyone can purchase at full-service grocery stores any time of the year. Registered dieticians and trained volunteers shop or price items for the NNFB items at local grocery stores from Sept. 12 to 18.
"Because we were so late in joining," Pronishen said. "[The ALWN] used the data from Lac La Biche."
The annual food costs for said family of four, single parent, and single person were estimated at $16,655, $8,518 and $5,134, respectively.
She added food costs in smaller communities also tended to be higher as there was less competition and residents did not have access to stores such as Walmart, Royal Canadian Superstore, and No Frills, which tend to bring down prices.
Shelter
For shelter, Pronishen, the Alberta Living Wage Network, uses the actual rental cost of an apartment or townhouse in each community.
The four-member family assumes a three-bedroom unit, while the single-parent family gets a two-bedroom, single-bedroom, and one-bedroom unit. The network also included renters insurance in its calculations based on community-specific estimates from Square One Insurance. Utility estimates were calculated using the Utilities Consumer Advocate's Cost Comparison Tool using September or October 2024 rates.
"The calculations were done [for both insurance and utilities] were done using an apartment building right here [in the Town of Barrhead]," she said, adding utilities were calculated using the lowest, five-year fixed rate.
Rental data for communities with a population of less than 10,000 is based on the Government of Alberta's 2023 Apartment Vacancy and Rental Cost Survey. For communities with a population of 10,000 or more, rental data is based on Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation's (CMHC) Housing Market Information Portal.
"For our community, they considered 309 rentals, getting data for 307 units," she said.
Pronishen noted that Barrhead faired quite well in the shelter costs category, averaging $17,081 for the year for a family of four compared to $13,725 for a single-parent household and $12,579 for a single-bedroom unit annually, the second-lowest of the 21 communities.
Transportation
In the transportation category, Barrhead was one of the most expensive communities in the study, coming in at the second-highest with annual costs of $12,029 for a family of four and $8,019 for a single child or lone individual households.
Pronishen said rural communities were hit especially hard in this category, as they do not have notable mass transit systems.
"For transportation, they used four 2016 vehicles: a Kia Rio, a Honda Civic, a Ford F150 and a Dodge Journey," she said, adding all the vehicles had 180,000 kilometres. "We used the price at the pumps that day at the Co-op Gas Bar, $1.38.9 a litre."
Rural community driving costs were based on 20,000 kilometres driven, with 70 per cent highway driving and two vehicles in the case of a two-person working family.
Childcare
Barrhead also did not fare well in childcare costs, ranking the most expensive of the 21 communities surveyed at $21,714 for a family with two children and $10,868 for a single-family, one-child household.
"For consistency across the province, only [certified] day-cares were included," Pronishen said. "No day homes or private care."
For the three-year-old, ALWN assumed the child would need 12 months of full-time childcare, while for the seven-year-old, they assumed the child would require before and after-school care and two months of full-time or summer programs.
Again, Pronishen reiterated that all the numbers in the study were taken from local childcare providers after the province's Affordability Grant was deducted and the Alberta Childcare Subsidy was factored in.
Healthcare
The network used the costs of one of the lower-tiered extended healthcare plans, which included dental and prescription coverage. The study also included the least expensive life insurance policy available from LowestRates.ca, and the lowest critical illness insurance available from the Manuel Life Cover Me website.
Clothing and footwear expenses
Pronishen said the following are for clothing, footwear, and other household costs: ALWN incorporated Statistics Canada numbers.
"It is based on the percentile of income a household makes, which is more often what people spend on clothing and footwear," she said.
Tuition
Pronishen also noted that all the hypothetical working adults in the study are 35 years old and, as such, "are always trying to better themselves" and update their education to improve their opportunities for career advancement, which is why ALWN includes the costs of two, three-credit online courses from Athabasca University.
Other household costs and contingency
The study uses Statistics Canada's Market Basket Measure multiplier to calculate other household expenses, such as furniture, household supplies, personal items, entertainment, Internet, and cell phones, which Pronishen states is very conservative and often includes prices and plans not available in rural communities.
For instance, she said, for cellular plans, ALWN assumes people are using the cheapest cell phone plan that provides unlimited talk and text and at least 5GB of data on a 4G network, which is currently Public Mobile's $23 monthly plan.
She added that ALWN's living wage calculations include a two-week wage as a contingency fund and all tax and other benefits available, such as Canada's Child Care Benefit and GST and carbon rebates.
