VICTORIA (NEWS1130) – The minimum wage in this province is about to go up; the government is increasing it by 20 cents.

This will come into effect on September 15th, when minimum wage workers will begin earning $10.45 an hour. A wage increase will take place every September, but by how much will be based on the cost of living.

Anyone who serves liquor and makes the current minimum wage of $9 an hour will also see an increase of 20 cents.

Jobs Minister Shirley Bond says if the Consumer Prince Index (CPI) goes down, minimum wage will stay the same.

“We have, currently, about 110,000 people in the province that earn the minimum wage. About 50 per cent of those individuals live at home with their parents. And of those, another 50 per cent are actually attending school,” says Bond.

“Today in British Columbia, our average hourly wage for adults is fourth-highest in the country. It’s actually just below $25 an hour. And our average hourly youth rate is just below $15 an hour,” she adds.

NDP jobs critic Shane Simpson says this move comes too late. “We had called on the government to index the minimum wage back when they did the increases in 2011. At that time, they ignored that. The minimum wage has been eroding ever since because of inflation.”

He says matching increases to the CPI is the most modest way to go about things and will not help people get out of poverty.

The last time there was a wage increase in BC was in 2011.

BC Federation of Labour calls the move “pathetic”

“I think it’s a pathetic response to the hundreds of thousands of people who work full time and live in poverty in this province,” says Irene Lanzinger, president of the The BC Federation of Labour.

The Federation has been calling for a $15 per hour rate.

“Seattle’s done it. San Francisco’s done it. large parts of the hospitality sector in Los Angeles… we are now eighth or ninth… in terms of minimum wage in the country.”

Lanzinger says $15 an hour it would be good for small business owners. “The fact is, if they pay people well, they’ll have to train less often because they have less turnover with decent wages.”

In response to the province’s announcement of annual incremental increases linked to inflation, Lanzinger says, “that will entrench poverty. It will index poverty because they’re starting at a poverty rage and raising it by CPI.”

“Currently, a minimum wage worker working full time is $6,000 below the poverty line. Tying it to CPI will never lift those people out of poverty,” she adds.

“What [would they] do with that extra $4.75? They spend it in their community. They buy better groceries for their children. They enroll their kids in a sport that they couldn’t afford before.”