Working poor need supports, not more low-wage jobs.
by Trish Garner
The recently released Rich 100 list shows that the combined worth of the wealthiest 100 Canadians surpassed $200 billion this year, with 11 percent belonging to the 12 British Columbians included in the list. Clearly, it’s been a great year at the top. For most of us, it’s a very different story. We’re working harder than ever before but still falling behind.
Launched last December, BC’s Hardest Working is a project that tells this story. Featuring profiles of 100 people from around the province, it shines a spotlight on the working poor and those working hard to survive on income assistance in BC.
Anna Wong, for example, is a room attendant at the Sheraton Vancouver airport, owned by the Lalji family, who are in 24th place on the Rich 100 list. While the Laljis are now worth $2.25 billion, an increase of 9.7 percent over last year, Anna makes just $16 an hour after working almost 20 years at the hotel. Despite seeing room rates at the hotel more than double in her time there, Anna’s wage has barely increased.
43 percent of children living in poverty in BC — 41,300 children — lived in families with at least one adult working full time for the whole year, and the vast majority live in families with at least some paid work.
Anna’s story is hardly exceptional. BC has the largest gap between the rich and the poor, and the highest poverty rate in Canada. Over half-a-million British Columbians live below the poverty line, and most of them have a job, sometimes several, in the paid labour force.
According to the latest Child Poverty Report Card from First Call: BC Child and Youth Advocacy Coalition, 43 percent of children living in poverty in BC — 41,300 children — lived in families with at least one adult working full time for the whole year, and the vast majority live in families with at least some paid work. HungerCount 2012 shows that 16 percent of households accessing food banks in BC this year had income from current or recent employment.
Clearly, having a job is not enough to protect people from poverty and hunger. Yet, the provincial government continues to push its Job Plan as a solution when presented with the facts of poverty in BC. The sad reality is that a minimum-wage job doesn’t lift a person above the poverty line. Even with the increased minimum wage of $10.25 an hour, a full-time worker living on their own in a large city in BC will still find themselves about $3,000 below the poverty line.
In the last 10 years the average household income of the top one percent in BC has increased by 36 percent while, for the rest of us, real median incomes have stagnated, even though we’re working harder.
The rest of us are not faring much better. In the last 10 years the average household income of the top one percent in BC has increased by 36 percent while, for the rest of us, real median incomes have stagnated, even though we’re working harder.
We have the highest household debt in Canada and the highest debt service burden, meaning we pay on average one dollar out of every 10 dollars in disposable income to interest on credit cards and other personal debts.
Part of the government’s role is redistribution of wealth and they are not doing it as effectively as they used to. Personal tax breaks have disproportionately favoured the rich while reducing the government’s ability to provide public services that, in general, the rest of us use more. In BC, the tax breaks that the top one percent of households received over the last 10 years have put $41,000 per year back in their pockets, more than double the yearly income of a full-time, minimum-wage worker.
Don’t forget those on social assistance, because they are working hard too! Welfare and disability rates are so low that people are constantly struggling to meet their basic needs. As Fraser Stuart, another participant in BC’s Hardest Working, says, “If you’re homeless, you line up for an hour for your bed at night. You line up to take a shower, another hour. You line up an hour to do your laundry… you’re lined up about six hours a day. That’s besides walking… it’s a full-time job being homeless.”
Welfare rates are deeply inadequate at $610 for a single “employable” person and $906 for a person with a disability. These rates have been frozen since 2007 so inflation eats away at what is already a subsistence income. We need a welfare system that helps people get back on their feet if they are able to work and allows them to live a life of dignity, without having to resort to charity, if they are not.
Low income is only half the story. BC’s Hardest Working highlights the challenges individuals and families are facing in relation to skyrocketing rents, unaffordable childcare, high tuition fees and more. These compelling stories reveal a fundamentally broken social safety net in BC.
Low income is only half the story. BC’s Hardest Working highlights the challenges individuals and families are facing in relation to skyrocketing rents, unaffordable childcare, high tuition fees and more.
A comprehensive poverty reduction strategy for BC would address these issues, for the health and well-being of all, not just a handful at the top. A recent poll commissioned by the BC Healthy Living Alliance shows that 78 percent of British Columbians support our political leaders committing to a poverty reduction plan. So, will our political parties be bold enough to follow the public’s lead in this critical election period?
BC is now one of only two provinces without a poverty reduction plan. This ommission affects real people, with real lives. BC’s Hardest Working tells their stories.
About Trish Garner
Trish Garner is the Community Organizer of the BC Poverty Reduction Coalition and the co-author of A Poverty Reduction Plan for BC. She gained her experience working with Raise the Rates, an anti-poverty group based in the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver. In 2008, she co-founded the Poverty Olympics, a community festival that highlighted the disparity between public spending on the Olympics and people living in poverty, and in 2010, she coordinated the Poverty Olympics Torch Relay around the province ending with an 100 km walk from Langley to Vancouver.
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