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On Thursday, Premier Rachel Notley’s NDP government took the first step toward keeping its election pledge to raise Alberta’s minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2018. The Herald’s Doug Hintz shares five things to know about the $1 increase, the history of the minimum wage in Alberta and what’s yet to come.

Photo by Paul Chiasson / THE CANADIAN PRESS

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On Wednesday, Alberta had the lowest minimum wage in the country, tied with Saskatchewan at $10.20 an hour ($9.20 for liquor servers). Thursday’s $1 increase to $11.20 ($10.20 for liquor servers) gives the province the third-highest rate among the country’s 13 provinces and territories, behind the Northwest Territories ($12.50) and Ontario ($11.25).

When Alberta first introduced a minimum wage in 1936, the rate was higher for men than for women, and for urban workers versus their rural counterparts. Those disparities gave way to an equal minimum wage for all by 1974, when the minimum wage was $2 per hour. The wage first hit $1 an hour in 1966.