CTV news, Sept 22/16 reports Vancouver BC city council will implement a “living wage” policy deemed to be a minimum of $20.64 an hour for its municipal employees.  In the Fraser valley just a few miles east of the Vancouver boundaries that living wage is pegged at $16.28.

This could easily be characterized as an opening salvo for the Basic Income by highlighting the huge discrepancies between the wages being offered to our most vulnerable citizens and the soaring costs of living today.  Sadly, these civic employees are but a small fraction of the workers in the Vancouver area, more and more of whom, are in need of a real, honest ‘living wage’.  Conversely, the Vancouver “living wage” is a long way from the minimum wage of $10.85 an hour recently set by its own BC government for everyone else in the province unfortunate enough not to be in a civic union or to have a full work week.

The Living Wage for Families Campaign – initiated by the Vancouver non-profit First Call: BC Child and Youth Advocacy Coalition – is focused primarily on a fair and compensatory exchanges of labour for wages.  They “define a living wage as an hourly amount a two-parent family with two children needs to earn to cover basic expenses, including food, clothing, rental housing, child care, transportation and a small savings to cover illness or emergencies”.  This idea also assumes that a person is able to acquire enough working hours to equal 35 hours a week or more.

However, a truly functional BI does not discriminate or target any particular group or individual or hours worked.  A BI has to be universal in its application to be truly equitable and fair.  Of course there have to be some limiting parameters such as citizenship and/or residency for enfranchisement.  Most importantly, a BI helps resolve the marginalizing and stigmatizing of our most vulnerable citizens as witnessed with the managing, policing and monitoring of so many of our social programs today.

That said, championing a living wage is a good start, but it is far too limited in scope.  Of course, a voluntary application of it amongst all employers would surely result in even more inequities within the labour market, while mandating it would surely ignite an employers revolt.

A Basic Income is the most certain avenue to achieving the goal of the “… amount a two-parent family with two children needs to earn to cover basic expenses, including food, clothing, rental housing, child care, transportation and a small savings to cover illness or emergencies”.  In fact, a BI might very well motivate employers to offer far more than a living wage in terms of competitive salaries and benefits when prospective employees are able to bargain without the spectre of homelessness and destitution lurking in the background.

Image: Vancouver CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 Neil Roger