B.C.’s minimum wage is in the spotlight this week as advocates call for the rate to be raised.

In its latest report card on child poverty, First Call is recommending that the provincial government boost the minimum wage to $15 and index it annually to increases in cost of living.

According to the B.C. coalition, a single parent with one child who is working full time and earning the minimum wage of $10.25 is left more than $8,000 below the before-tax poverty line of $26,810.

“That wage should be enough to lift a single person at least out of poverty and presumably over poverty, because our goal isn’t to get people to work at the poverty line, it’s to get them to work above the poverty line,” First Call provincial coordinator Adrienne Montani told the Straight by phone. “It’s just not adequate for a family.”

First Call issued the recommendation the same week the B.C. Federation of Labour launched its Fight for 15 campaign, aimed at securing a $15 minimum wage in the province.

B.C.’s minimum wage is eighth in Canada, while the province has the highest cost of living in the country. According to the federation, more than 120,000 B.C. workers are earning minimum wage.

First Call’s 2014 report card issues a series of other recommendations aimed at addressing child-poverty levels in B.C., including a call for a comprehensive poverty reduction plan.

“There has been a slight decline in B.C. for child poverty…over the last 12 or 13 years,” Montani said. “But that’s pretty glacial for 13 years, to go from one in four, which was horrendous, to one in five.”

Another recommendation from the organization calls for the removal of financial barriers for low-income students and the lowering of student debt levels through tuition fee reductions, student grants, and interest-free loans.

Montani said young parents are being squeezed with student debt loads, on top of “exorbitant rent” and high child-care costs—an issue that she says previous generations didn’t have to cope with.

“Not only are we burdening lots of young people with student debt, but…it’s inequitable,” she added.

“A person who gets to go and not accumulate any debt because they have family resources behind them to pay the tuition—it’s just inequitable that somebody else has to get a student loan and then pays all this interest over time. So in fact the poorer students or the less advantaged students are paying more for their post-secondary education….and that’s patently unfair.”

According to the report card, the Central Coast regional district had the highest child-poverty rate in B.C., based on 2012 statistics, while the areas with the most children living in poverty in the city of Vancouver were the Downtown Eastside, Chinatown, and Strathcona.