The living wage in City of Powell River has gone up to $23.33 an hour for 2022, this year’s update report shows.
According to a media release from Lift Community Services, this is a significant increase from 2019, the last year the city participated in the campaign. In 2019, the living wage for Powell River was calculated at $16.31.
The release stated that the living wage is the hourly wage two parents working full-time need to earn to support a family of four.
Other communities across the province have seen staggering living wage increases, including Kelowna at $4.39 (23.7 per cent) higher than last year’s rate of $18.49, Victoria at $3.83 (18.7 per cent) higher than last year’s $20.46 and Metro Vancouver $3.56 (17.3 per cent) higher than last year’s $20.52.
Lift has partnered with the Living Wage for Families campaign to ensure local data was included in this year’s report.
“People in Powell River and the broader qathet region are struggling to keep up with soaring costs for essentials like food and housing,” stated Lift executive director Stuart Clark. “This year’s living wage has seen big increases across the province, and our community seems to be increasing faster than others, which is very concerning. This is in part due to a lack of affordable housing in our community.
“Putting in place policies like vacancy control and making large-scale investments in non-market rental housing could help make life more affordable for workers in qathet and across the province.”
The release stated that the living wage is enough for a family with two young children to cover necessities, support the healthy development of their children, escape severe financial stress and participate in the social, civic and cultural lives of their communities. It affords a decent but still very modest standard of living, without the extras many take for granted, according to the release.
A strikingly large gap exists between the 2022 living wages for communities across BC and the province’s minimum wage, which is currently $15.65 per hour.
“We are entering a time when public and nonprofit community services, especially those focused on food and housing, are needed more than ever,” stated Clark. “I call on our local and provincial government partners to continue to work together with local community organizations and people with lived experience to come up with policy and service solutions to this affordability crisis.”
The release stated that in Powell River, food costs $1,238 per month, which is higher than the average of all communities at $1,141. Across most of BC, food costs rose by a whopping 16.9 per cent since last year, adding an extra $161 per month to the family budget, according to the release.
Food is the second-highest cost in most communities, only exceeded by the cost of housing. Food used to be the third-most expensive item but has now edged ahead of child care costs after the BC government made major investments in child care affordability in 2018 that significantly reduced out-of-pocket childcare costs for the living wage family, the release stated.
“With general inflation shooting up to a 40-year high this year, and with the cost of food rising even faster and rent increasing everywhere, especially for families that need to move and are no longer protected by rent control, it’s not surprising to see such big increases this year,” stated Anastasia French, Living Wage for Families provincial manager.
