While many continue to face sky-high grocery, rent, and gas prices, some relief is coming for British Columbians who are counting every last cent.
The minimum wage is rising in BC by $0.65 per hour starting next month.
The province’s lowest-paid workers will get a pay raise from $16.75 to $17.40 per hour when the general minimum wage increases on June 1, the Ministry of Labour announced earlier this year.
“BC has gone from having one of the lowest minimum wages in the country to the highest of all the provinces. We made a commitment to tie minimum-wage increases to the rate of inflation to prevent BC’s lowest-paid workers from falling behind,” said Minister of Labour Harry Bains. “And today, we are enshrining that commitment into law.”
The minimum wage boost represents a 3.9% increase, “consistent with BC’s average rate of inflation in 2023,” the Province said in February.
According to Living Wage for Families, Metro Vancouver’s living wage climbed to $25.68 per hour in 2023.
Most notably, last year’s Living Wage report showed that rent and food prices rose sharply in BC communities.
Compared to 2022, a Metro Vancouver family earning a living wage in 2023 had to spend over $4,000 more for the same basket of goods.
livingwageforfamilies.ca
The Province said minimum-wage earners can count on annual wage increases as future increases to minimum rates are automatically determined by the previous year’s average inflation rate for BC.
Alternate minimum rates for residential caretakers, live-in home-support workers and camp leaders will receive a 3.9% increase in June. The pay raise will apply to 15 hand-harvested crops on December 31, 2024.
“Most wage rates will increase on June 1 of each year, except for agricultural piece rates that will increase on December 31 of each year to ensure crop producers will not have to adjust wages in the middle of the harvesting season,” the Province added.
This piece was originally published on February 26, 2024, and has since been updated.