Just days after the province learned it will receive some serious funding from the feds, the McGuinty government plans to update us on the state of Ontario's finances with its own budget Thursday that will reportedly include an increase to the minimum wage.

After MPPs voted themselves a pay increase just before Christmas the NDP put some serious pressure on the Liberals to provide an increase to people across the province earning the least.

The provincial budget may include a plan to boost the minimum wage to $10.25 an hour by the year 2010.

According to a published report, Dalton McGuinty's Liberal government will announce in Thursday's budget that they intend to gradually increase the hourly rate over three years - as opposed to a one-time hike - in order to prevent job losses.

Currently, workers in minimum wage jobs make $8 an hour, up from $6.85 when the Liberals were first elected.

Under the reported plan, that would jump to $8.75 next year, another 50 cent-increase to $9.25 an hour in 2009, and then the final buck would be tacked on in 2010.

"It would be pretty awesome. I mean it would make us able to afford things that we can't always afford in this industry," a Toronto waitress named Julie said.

Finance Minister Greg Sorbara hinted at a study that suggests between 90,000 and 180,000 jobs could be lost if the 25 per cent increase came all at once.

Progressive Conservative finance critic Tim Hudak expressed similar concern.

"We need to make sure it increases in such a way that it doesn't chase even more jobs out of the province of Ontario than Dalton McGuinty has already done," he said.

Sorbara was at a Toronto public school Wednesday touting the work of his party which he said has contributed to the province's fiscal prosperity.

"From day one, our spending has been prudent. We have had to balance those two simple things that make up a budget: your revenues and your expenditures," he explained.

"We started off in a very deep hole. We've made progress in each of the three budgets that we presented, and I'm hoping that we can make some more progress tomorrow."

There's word Sorbara's budget will focus on helping the less fortunate living in this province.

It's estimated 1.2 million Ontarians earn $10 an hour or less.

The budget will undoubtedly aim to please voters ahead of this fall's provincial election. The Liberals at Queen's Park received a serious boost from the federal Conservatives when they allocated $1.5 billion for Ontario in their budget which was delivered on Monday.

Watch for live coverage on CP24 Thursday at 4pm.

B.C. $8
Alberta: $7
Saskatchewan: $7.95
Manitoba: $7.60, increasing to $8 on April 1st
Ontario: $8 now , $10.25 by 2010.
Quebec: $7.75, increasing to $8 as of May 1st
New Brunswick: $7, increasing to $7.25 as of July 1st
Nova Scotia: $7.15
Prince Edward Island: $7.15, increasing to $7.50 as of April 1st.
Newfoundland & Labrador: $7
Northwest Territories: $8.25
Yukon: $7.20
Nunavut: $8.50