The minimum wage is going up today (June 1).
It’s the first of a series of increases to bring the minimum wage to 15 dollars 20 cents an hour by 2021.
The increase today will see the minimum wage go from 11-35 an hour to 12-65.
A new study by the Fraser Institute says the increase will do little to alleviate poverty.
That’s because, according to the study, in 2017, just over 55 per cent of all minimum wage earners in BC were under the age of 25 and the vast majority of them lived with a parent or other relatives.
The report says 22 per cent of all minimum wage earners in BC had an employed spouse and of those 93 per cent had spouses that were either self-employed or earning more than the minimum wage.
It says just 2 per cent of workers earning minimum wage in Canada were single parents with young children.
As for the comments from the Fraser Institute, Lanzinger says the study doesn’t take into account people making just slightly more than minimum wage.
She says one-quarter of the working population in B.C. is working for a poverty wage and those include 70,000 seniors.
