Rating Victoria: Vital Signs report
Victoria News
By Roszan Holmen
October 05, 2010

These days, a couple with two children both need to work full-time earning $17.31 an hour to achieve an adequate standard of living in Greater Victoria. That’s 29 cents per hour more than in 2009.

The statistic appears along side hundreds of others in this year’s Vital Signs report, a type of community assessment produced annually by the Victoria Foundation.

“The cost of living has gone up by more than 10 per cent over four years,” said Christina Peacock of the Community Council that tabulates the affordability index.

The minimal salary assumes a couple is renting, and is paying for childcare leaving $671.80 for all discretionary spending. The harmonized sales tax and other recent hikes in utility fees have not been counted in the 2010 statistics….

[Note: In January 2010 there were 5,385 registered child-care spaces for 18,462 children under the age of five in the region.]

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