Our achievements this year

We are a very small program (with currently only one staff member), but with a network of hundreds of very passionate employers, advocates, labour partners and community champions, we managed to achieve far more than we could on our own.

Soaring cost of living—especially for housing—causes living wages to increase across BC

The 2024 living wage for Metro Vancouver has risen to $27.05 per hour, a 5.3% increase from last year. This significant increase highlights the region’s deepening affordability crisis fuelled by sky-high housing costs.

Living wages are also going up across the province as our new report shows.

While inflation has eased from record highs, essential costs like rent and food continue to rise faster than general inflation.

Government initiatives such as increases to key income-tested government benefits, ongoing child care affordability improvements and the roll-out of the Canadian Dental Care Plan have provided some relief. The savings, however, have been entirely consumed by soaring prices—especially for housing and food—leaving many households struggling to make ends meet.

Living Wage for Families is evolving into Living Wage BC

This rebrand is a major step in our journey to ensure that every worker in British Columbia can thrive, not just survive.

80 Employers call on party leaders to take action to close wage gaps

On International Equal Pay Day, a coalition of 80 small business owners, non-profit directors, and senior HR leaders are urging party leaders to use their platforms to implement policies to close pay gaps.
In an open letter addressed to all party leaders, the group, which employ thousands of workers in BC, provide a series of recommendations on actions the next government should take to close the wage gap, by lifting pay and lowering costs.

People in poverty need a road map to real solutions: The new Poverty Reduction Strategy does not provide that

By Rowan Burdge, Provincial Director of the Poverty Reduction Coalition, 

Anastasia French, Provincial Manager for Living Wage for Families BC

Véronique Sioufi, Researcher for Racial & Socio-economic Equity, Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives

We have a new Living Wage Employer!

Thurber Engineering just became a certified Living Wage Employer - committing to pay their staff and contracted workers a living wage.

A NEW LIVING WAGE EMPLOYER!

DIVERSEcity Community Resources Society just became a certified Living Wage Employer - committing to pay their staff and contracted workers a living wage.

Disability benefits stop workers earning a living wage

Did you know disabled workers can only earn $16,200 a year before they lose access to their disability benefits? And when they lose access to their disability benefits it sometimes can mean they lose access to other entitlements such as housing.

Living Wage Employers who want to do the right thing face a difficult dilemma - do they pay their disabled staff less by offering them fewer hours than their non-disabled peers or do they let their staff lose access to the support they’re entitled to?

We’ve partnered with Poverty Reduction Coalition, Disability Alliance of BC and 50 other employers to sign this open letter to the Minister for Social Development and Poverty Reduction, to ask her to use the upcoming review of the Poverty Reduction Strategy to remove these restrictions and allow disabled workers to earn a Living Wage.

1 in 3 workers in BC don't earn a Living Wage

New data obtained by Living Wage for Families BC and CCPA-BC from Statistics Canada reveals large wage inequalities based on gender and race in BC’s labour market. That’s more than 740,000 people who are trapped in a gap between how much money they make and how much they need to earn to pay for rent and other essentials.

NEW LIVING WAGE EMPLOYER!

Power To Be just became a certified Living Wage Employer - committing to pay their staff and contracted workers a living wage.