For the first time in eight years, Vancouver’s living wage has fallen, and it’s thanks to a revamped family tax benefit that is geared to income, say anti-poverty advocates.
The living wage — the amount needed to cover the cost of raising a family in Vancouver —is $20.64 this year, down from $20.68 in 2015, according to a report published today by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, child poverty advocacy group First Call, and the Living Wage Campaign.
The decrease comes even as housing and child care costs have continued to increase in Vancouver, which has the most glaring disconnect between housing prices and median incomes and the second highest child care costs in the country. Rent rose $75 compared to the CCPA’s 2015 living wage calculation, while child care increased $32.
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The previous Conservative government had introduced the Universal Child Care Benefit (UCCB), which paid parents a taxable benefit of $100 per month, per child, regardless of family income. But advocates had called for a progressive child benefit that diverted more funds to poorer families.
The Liberal government introduced the Canada Child Benefit in their 2016 budget, which will pay a maximum benefit of $6,400 per year, per child to families with children under six and $5,400 for children between the ages of six and 17. Families with higher incomes will receive less money. The new non-taxable benefit replaces both the UCCB and the previous Canada Child Tax Benefit.
“That’s almost double what the current benefit gives and basically that’s what a lot of child poverty advocates have been arguing for this,” Iglika Ivanova, an economist with the CCPA, told Business in Vancouver in an interview shortly before the February budget was released.
“It is a significant amount: it will lift one out of every three children who are currently in poverty out of poverty.”
According to statistics from 2013, 38% of two-parent families with children in Metro Vancouver make less than the living wage, Ivanova said.
While federal policy will make a demonstrable difference to families living in poverty, Living Wage Campaign organizer Deanna Ogle called on the British Columbia government to step up as well. B.C. is currently the only province without a poverty reduction plan in place.
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