I wish I could say last Thursday’s minimum wage policy announcement by Jobs Minister Shirley Bond is the first time a government press conference has been held to announce a drop in a bucket, but I know it isn’t. For minimum wage workers in Vancouver, Bond’s announcement of a mere 20 cent increase is just the most recent attack on their hope of making a decent living in Vancouver.
Bond announced that our minimum wage will rise 20 cents in September to $10.45 an hour. Future increases to the minimum wage will now occur annually and will be tied to inflation. If the Consumer Price Index shows an increase in inflation, wages will go up accordingly, and if inflation declines, wages will stay the same. For workers currently failing to make ends meet, it’s little help.
I don’t have fond memories of the period in my life when I made minimum wage. In the mid-1990s, I finished high school with good grades but turned down admission to UBC because I needed to work full time to help my mother make her rent. I made $7 an hour and worked 10-hour days with no overtime pay. I couldn’t complain — I needed the money. I lived in a large house with seven other young people, and my room was the non-insulated front porch. With youth on my side, I made it work until I could upgrade my skills and move to a better paying job that pulled me above the poverty line.
Things have not improved for minimum wage workers in B.C. in the 20 years since I lived in that front porch. Two decades later, the minimum wage has increased by just over three dollars, while food costs and rents have ballooned. A friend who recently posted for a roommate on Craigslist found not just single young people wanted to rent his second bedroom, but several parents with children applied. Another shortlisted candidate marvelled that the room for rent actually had a door, as many other roommate situations she’d considered were cornered off portions of common rooms, defined only by curtains.
Activists and B.C. labour unions have been campaigning for a minimum wage of $15 an hour; they’ve calculated that would get a full time worker above the poverty line. The current minimum wage of $10.25 ($9 for those who serve alcohol for a living) doesn’t cut it. If a minimum wage doesn’t even guarantee a full-time worker will be above the poverty line, how can it be a fair minimum wage?
While Premier Clark has said that such an increase would harm small businesses in B.C., some U.S. cities have already passed $15 minimum wage legislation. In 2014, both San Francisco and Seattle endorsed the goal and set gradual increases that will see San Francisco achieve $15 by 2018, and Seattle by 2017 or 2021, depending on the size of the employer. Vancouver can’t follow suit. In Canada, minimum wages are set provincially, and so the best Vancouver’s city council can do is advocate to the province.
Our new minimum wage with its annual increases tied to inflation likely won’t hit the $15 mark until 2034. B.C. children born today will reach legal drinking before they will make $15 an hour in a minimum wage job. It’s a disheartening future for parents.
Many areas of B.C. will find the 20-cent increase inadequate, including northern communities grappling with crazy-making food costs and lone parents anywhere in the province who can’t afford the childcare that would free them to work. In Vancouver, we will continue to be hit hard. Our diverse city is a destination for many communities that are especially vulnerable to an inadequate minimum wage. New Canadians, urban aboriginals and transgendered youth come to Vancouver for a better life, but find themselves unable to escape poverty, even if they can get a job. A 20-cent increase in the minimum wage is an inadequate and unacceptable response to their difficulties.
We shouldn’t stop pressuring the provincial government to raise the wages of our lowest paid workers. No one working full time should live below the poverty line.
Next Monday evening at 7 p.m., the Vancouver Elementary School Teachers’ Association is hosting a meeting at their offices (2915 Commercial Dr.) for Vancouverites who’d like to help keep the pressure on the provincial government.
