BC Ends the Family Benefit Bonus

When B.C.’s 2024 budget included a temporary 25 per cent increase to its monthly BC Family Benefit, raising annual payments up by $445 on average, Premier David Eby cited the steep cost of living.

“With global inflation and high interest rates driving up daily costs, we know families are being hit hard right now,” Eby said in a government press release.

“Getting a little extra money to families for the basics is one of the ways we’re helping people who are feeling squeezed right now.”

The maximum annual income threshold, under which you would receive the full bonus benefit of $2,188 annually for your first child, $1,375 for your second and $1,125 for each additional child, was also increased to $35,902 from $27,354.

Parents earning $35,902 to just below $114,887 annually received at least $969 for the first child, $937 for the second and $906 for each additional child.

Any household with one kid making less than $139,000 and less than $162,000 with two kids would receive a partial benefit.

But despite the cost of living continuing its steady climb upwards in 2025, the province quietly let the meter run out on the bonus on July 1 when monthly payments went back to their 2023-24 levels.

Only the income thresholds have changed slightly from that year, with the maximum household incomes now at under $29,526, up from $27,354, to receive the full benefit of $1,750 for the first child, $1,100 for the second and $900 for each child thereafter.

Now, parents earning between $29,526 and $94,483 annually will receive at least $775 for the first child, $750 for the second and $725 for each additional child.

Any household with kids making over $94,483 will see their payments reduced by four per cent of their household income level over that amount, until the payments reach $0.

When announcing the temporary bonus last year, the province’s press release noted 70 per cent of B.C. families receive the BC Family Benefit, and the bonus meant an additional 66,000 families with kids would receive the benefit, for a total of 340,000 families.

Adrienne Montani, executive director of First Call Child and Youth Advocacy Society, wants to know how many families have been impacted by what is effectively a cut to benefit rates, and how much money the province is saving by ending the bonus.

“They’re basically taking money out of the lowest income families,” she said, adding her organization’s calculations found a one-child family in the lowest income bracket will lose $438 a year, while a family with two kids in that bracket would lose $713 annually or about $60 per month.

That is a lot, Montani says. “Especially if you’re on income assistance or disability assistance, that’s a big chunk for you.”

The Centre for Family Equity, which put out a joint press release with First Call on July 8 to criticize the government’s decision to end the bonus, quoted parents impacted by the cut on their website.

“This news causes me so much anxiety and stress, knowing I will struggle to buy food and necessities for my two toddlers,” reads a statement from Mariam, who lives in Langley.

“The cost of food, diapers and formula has increased to an unimaginable amount, and with this reduction, I don’t know how I can afford a basic living for us. I’m losing hope for a better future for us at this rate.”

The government’s response

The Tyee requested an interview with Finance Minister Brenda Bailey, but she was not made available.

Instead a spokesperson sent an emailed statement on Bailey’s behalf to The Tyee that revealed the bonus had cost the province $186 million in fiscal year 2024-25 and $62 million in 2025-26.

Compared to the 340,000 families eligible for the benefit when the bonus was in place, just 281,000 continue to be eligible for the BC Family Benefit according to the ministry. But eligible lone parents will retain the additional bonus of up to $500 annually that was introduced in 2023.

“The BC Family Benefit Bonus was a temporary enhancement for the 2024-25 benefit year — provided at a time when inflation and interest rates were especially high,” Minister Bailey’s emailed statement read.

“Our government continues to prioritize helping people and families with costs by delivering homes for the middle class, keeping the cost of child care, hydro and car insurance low, introducing school food programs across the province and increasing income and disability rates five times, since 2017.”

Inflation continues

While the cost of living in B.C. may not be rising at the astronomical rate it was last year, it is still going up.

As of May 2025, B.C.’s annual inflation rate was 2.3 per cent, higher than the federal average of 1.7 per cent.

Vacant or new purpose-built rental units are offering lower monthly rents compared to 2024, dropping 4.9 per cent for a two-bedroom unit in Metro Vancouver, according to the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation.

But tenanted two-bedroom units in the Metro Vancouver region saw their average monthly rents increase by 7.1 per cent over the previous year at the end of 2025’s first quarter.

And the gap between renting in a newly constructed building and an older rental building is closing, too. The CMHC’s report puts it at just nine per cent for two-bedroom purpose-built rental apartments.

“In expensive, tight markets, affordability has deteriorated to the point where many new and moving renters are settling for modest savings by choosing older stock.”

The rent-to-income ratio, the average two-bedroom rent as a portion of the average income, in Metro Vancouver is also the highest in the country at 17.8 per cent in March 2025.

For less pricey areas of B.C., the most recent rental information from October 2024 found two-bedroom rentals turning over to new tenants increased in cost from a low 1.5 per cent increase in average Abbotsford-Mission rents to $1,792 from $1,765 per month, to a high 33.3 per cent average increase in Kamloops to $1,934 from $1,450 per month.

Even the provincial government seemed to see steep rental costs coming, tying 2025’s allowable rental increase to inflation at three per cent, down from 3.5 per cent the year before.

They’ve also increased the number of families with kids eligible for the Rental Assistance Program in the province by 50 per cent according to Minister Bailey’s office, investing $75 million in 2025-26 and $150 million “a year thereafter.”

Food isn’t getting any cheaper, either. Statistics Canada’s average monthly retail prices tracker found a month’s worth of groceries increased to $675.60 in May 2025, from $649.44 in May 2024, a four per cent increase.

Deepening family poverty: Montani

It all adds up to make every penny count for B.C.’s poorest families, says Montani.

“This will put more families into poverty or lower or deepen their poverty,” she said of the end of the BC Family Benefit Bonus.

First Call estimated the BC Family Benefit, when combined with the Canada Child Tax Benefit, helped lift over 57,000 B.C. families with kids out of poverty in 2022.

That was before the temporary increase to the BC Family Benefit, the impacts of which won’t be known until First Call’s 2026 Child Poverty Report Card is released.

Montani is urging the province to step in and find the money to make the bonus a permanent increase to the BC Family Benefit.

“They can’t change the budget now, but we look back to during the pandemic when they were able to, in fairly quick order, add little bonuses to people on income assistance, for instance,” Montani said, adding some of those increases were only temporary, too.

“They can do things if they want, is our point,” she said.

“They’ve chosen to take income away from low-income families. And that’s really disappointing.”