Metro Vancouver’s living wage is now more than $27 an hour

A caller study has recovered that residents of Metro Vancouver request to marque $27.05 an hr to gain a living wage, a 5.3-per cent summation from past year.

The wage, calculated by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, BC Office and Living Wage BC, is the hourly complaint that each of 2 parents moving full-time indispensable gain to enactment a household of 4 based connected the outgo of surviving successful a peculiar community.

B.C.’s existent minimum wage is $17.40 per hour.

The study recovered that astir fractional a cardinal workers — 37 per cent of each paid employees successful Metro Vancouver — gain little than the surviving wage.

Anastasia French, provincial manager astatine Living Wage BC, told Global News that the surviving wage is what a idiosyncratic needs to wage for basal essentials similar nutrient and rent.

“What we recovered this twelvemonth is that the surviving wage truly varies depending connected wherever you live,” she said.

“All the mode from Grand Forks with the lowest surviving wage successful B.C. astatine $20.81, each the mode up to $28 successful Whistler. But it’s Metro Vancouver, which is wherever the immense bulk of radical successful B.C. live.”

French said factors specified arsenic lodging costs and nutrient support going up astatine a complaint that is unaffordable for galore workers.

Government’s fiscal alleviation measures, specified arsenic affordable childcare programs, were intended to assistance offset those rising costs. However, the study recovered that those measures are outpaced by rising rents.

“Rent has been the astir costly point successful the Metro Vancouver surviving wage household fund since the calculation was archetypal produced successful 2008 and this twelvemonth is nary exception,” Iglika Ivanova, elder economist astatine the B.C. bureau of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives and the report’s pb author, said successful a statement.

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Shelter costs for a household successful Metro Vancouver accrued 9.5 per cent this year, which is astir an further $276 a month.

Metro Vancouver’s surviving wage is the 3rd highest successful the province, down Whistler astatine $28.89 per hr and Clayoquot Sound astatine $27.42 per hour.

“We admit that $27 is simply a truly precocious wage, for galore employers it mightiness beryllium retired of reach,” French said.

“It’s worthy factoring successful immoderate benefits that you connection due to the fact that that mightiness marque you a surviving wage much manageable.”

In the Interior, the surviving wage successful Kelowna is present $25.77, which is an summation of 4.76 per cent from 2023.