In June, British Columbia’s minimum wage increased from $16.75 per hour to $17.40, which is the highest of any province in the country. Proponents of the increase argue that it will reduce poverty—but what does the evidence show?

According to a 2021 study, 8.8 per cent of all Canadian workers earned the minimum wage. Of those minimum-wage earners, in British Columbia, just 7.9 per cent lived in households below the low-income cut-off or LICO, which is often used as a proxy for the poverty line.

Put simply, 92.1 per cent of minimum-wage earners in British Columbia lived in households above the LICO threshold, mainly because most minimum-wage workers are not the primary breadwinners in their households, but are rather secondary or tertiary wage earners. Such an individual may be, for example, a spouse working part-time, or a school-aged child still living at home who works........

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