The consequences of inflation spikes, interest rate hikes, and the rising cost of food and housing are now being contextualized, as the living wage has increased dramatically across BC.
In Metro Vancouver, the living wage has gone up to $24.08 per hour, the highest increase since the inception of the statistic. But Vancouver isn’t the most expensive city in BC due to the living wage rise; that dubious honour goes to Victoria.
The numbers were brought forward by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives BC (CCPA-BC).
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In Victoria, the living wage has increased to $24.29 per hour, which the CCPA points out is because of the increased cost of food on Vancouver Island.
According to the CCPA, the living wage is the hourly amount that two parents working full-time need to make to support a family of four.
Around the province, the living wage has increased in every major city.
Last year in Kelowna, the living wage was $18.49. That number has gone up by $4.39 (23.7%).
As mentioned, Victoria’s living wage has reached $24.29, which is $3.83 higher than last year. In Metro Vancouver, the living wage last year was $20.52, which has increased by $3.56.
The CCPA states that the increases are driven by food and shelter costs.
Is the province doing enough?
Earlier this year, the BC government announced that future minimum wage increases would be tied to the general inflation rate. Presently, in BC, the minimum wage is $15.65 per hour. That falls approximately $8.50 per hour short of the living wage.
The CCPA suggests that tying minimum wage hikes to the general inflation rate isn’t enough, and it calls the gap between living and minimum wage a “cause for concern.”
“Tying minimum wage increases to the general inflation rate measured by Statistics Canada’s Consumer Price Index (CPI) is clearly far from sufficient. BC’s Fair Wages Commission has been tasked with advising the provincial government on ways to begin addressing this gap, however, the report is yet to be released.”
Interestingly, the CCPA notes that when the living wage metric was introduced in 2008, the living wage in Metro Vancouver was sufficient to support a single-parent family with one young child, but that’s no longer the case thanks to the “sharp increases in the cost of living.”
An important thing to note is that the living wage calculation doesn’t cover several factors, including credit card and loan payments, retirement savings, owning a home, saving for a child’s future education, anything beyond minimal recreation and entertainment costs, costs for caring for someone who is disabled or elderly, and it doesn’t account a cushion for emergency costs.
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