Federal minimum wage rising to $16.65 on April 1

[CdnFox]

18 minutes ago, West said:

Minimum wage hikes cause a barrier to entry especially for small businesses who are already razor thin on their margins. You might as well just go work for minimum wage now as a small business owner as most are only making 40k a year anyways

This is a challenge. Kids got paid less because they're kids - they're going to have more 'sick days', they're going to goof off and accidentally break things etc and they're limited in their skills and reliability, Which is fine when you're paying a little less and you can afford to deal with that . BUt if you're being forced to pay higher rates, you tend to hold out for those more experienced workers who are of more value.

[myata]

8 hours ago, ExFlyer said:

So you say welfare bums drag down the economy? LOL

No you aren't getting it. Welfare isn't prosperity and kind of the opposite of it. Canada used to have a pretense of broad prosperity through digging and selling a lot of its stuff but that model is running dry and there aren't many new ones because change is anathema. Just watch it, then.

[ExFlyer]

7 hours ago, myata said:

No you aren't getting it. Welfare isn't prosperity and kind of the opposite of it. Canada used to have a pretense of broad prosperity through digging and selling a lot of its stuff but that model is running dry and there aren't many new ones because change is anathema. Just watch it, then.

You are saying "Prosperous and stable societies are such because they are made of prosperous and happy citizens."

How do you do that? Give them all money because they don't seem to want to earn it now, what makes you think they will want to work then??

Seems like to make them "prosperous" is to give them more...... welfare. Otherwise, all remains the same.

 

[myata]

48 minutes ago, ExFlyer said:

Seems like to make them "prosperous" is to give them more...... welfare.

Only because you are stuck in a hopelessly outdated system that has run its steam long, long time ago.

48 minutes ago, ExFlyer said:

How do you do that?

It takes ingenuity; innovation; more importantly, active involvement of smart and engaged citizens. You simply can't get that in a bored to clinical death system where lifting bureaucratic pen costs $1 million and the best solution is to change nothing, because everything was made perfectly perfect in the times of Adam.

Edited March 24 by myata

[Moonbox]

21 hours ago, CdnFox said:

For example - imagine it cost 100 dollars a month to rent an absolute crap apartment that a poor person earning minimum wage would rent.  The average rent in the area is 500.  A 10 percent increase to min wage might drive up the lowest class of rent without affecting the others.  SO - now 100 becomes 110 but the 500 is still 500.  So - the actual impact to overall inflation is much lower.

It's never a 1:1 correlation.  Rent doesn't automatically go up for poor people apartments because their wages went up 10%, and even if it did, they'd still be better off as long as their rent wasn't 100% of their income (which it isn't).  

21 hours ago, CdnFox said:

Well of course it improved their wages. If you have a raise in min wages - the wages improve.

But the number of jobs decreased for low income people in select sectors and there could be localized inflation.

Localized inflation due to federal minimum wage increases is pretty awkward concept.  

Regardless, the implication that keeping wages low for poor people is actually helping them is almost a meme now.  You can't ignore the link between wages and jobs, but the correlation is far more elastic than folks making this argument would imagine, and that's ignoring the fact that the absolute job numbers aren't the goal.  Livable wages are, and if we're not providing those then it's up to social assistance, in which case the state is supporting these people instead of the companies that are actually benefiting from the labor.

 

 

Edited March 24 by Moonbox

[ExFlyer]

1 hour ago, myata said:

Only because you are stuck in a hopelessly outdated system that has run its steam long, long time ago.

It takes ingenuity; innovation; more importantly, active involvement of smart and engaged citizens. .

If you give money for free, no strings attached, not working for it, then it is welfare, social assistance, dole, free financial support, universal basic  income etc.

It takes people to work for their sustenance, rather than just take.

Not hopelessly outdated but hopelessly fed up with giving to people for doing nothing.

[Aristides]

Which federally regulated industries pay minimum wage, things like airport security maybe? When you look at federally regulated industries and work places, very few if any are small businesses. 

[ExFlyer]

7 minutes ago, Aristides said:

Which federally regulated industries pay minimum wage, things like airport security maybe? When you look at federally regulated industries and work places, very few if any are small businesses. 

It has to do with any federal job including contracted work So, the people working for a company that has federal contacts has to pay that federally mandated minimum wage. That includes small businesses providing supplies and products etc.

[impartialobserver]

11 hours ago, West said:

Minimum wage hikes cause a barrier to entry especially for small businesses who are already razor thin on their margins. You might as well just go work for minimum wage now as a small business owner as most are only making 40k a year anyways

I can only speak for NV but a certain reality debunks your logic... The average weekly wage (not minimum) in the market is $1158 as 2022 q2. There is a lag so ease up on the gotcha. Minimum wage is $420 (10.50 * 40). If you can't see that the first number exceeds the minimum and the implications of that... you are not as smart as you pretend to be. 

Edited March 24 by impartialobserver

[Aristides]

10 minutes ago, ExFlyer said:

It has to do with any federal job including contracted work So, the people working for a company that has federal contacts has to pay that federally mandated minimum wage. That includes small businesses providing supplies and products etc.

Then they will charge the taxpayer accordingly.

[CdnFox]

1 hour ago, Moonbox said:

It's never a 1:1 correlation.  Rent doesn't automatically go up for poor people apartments because their wages went up 10%, and even if it did, they'd still be better off as long as their rent wasn't 100% of their income (which it isn't).  

Of COURSE not.  It was a simplified example to demonstrate the concept. Nobody rents a place for 100 dollars a month either.  it was simply to show how something that affected poor people's inflation dramatically might not show up in the larger inflationary picture. Seriously - the 100 dollars didn't tip you off that it wasn't a real world case  study?

Minimum wage increase can have significant inflationary influences on poor people without jacking the overall inflation rate significantly.

 

1 hour ago, Moonbox said:

Localized inflation due to federal minimum wage increases is pretty awkward concept.  

It isn't even in the slightest. In fact it's inevitable no matter how you choose to define localized.  And in fact MOST FEDERAL programs have different impacts on a local level. That's why one size fits all solutions are rarely ideal.

A raise in minimum wage is more likely to have an impact on poorer localized communities and less on wealthier communities. As i noted rents overall might not change much, but rents in parts of towns that tend to be lower income may start to inch up. Or food prices, or the costs of certain other goods.

1 hour ago, Moonbox said:

Regardless, the implication that keeping wages low for poor people is actually helping them is almost a meme now. 

Well that's dumb. I think we're going to agree there and anyone making that argument is being silly.

The issue is that artificially raising them is not helping. And it tends to reduce opportunity for them as well. But - it DOES hurt kids just starting out in their careers and looking for their first work experience. They may not be poor - but they're gonna be if they can't start getting some credentials and experience behind them. And remember - the VAST majority of people earning minimum wage are NOT poor people.

So it does have a very negative effect there.

As far as poor people go - raising minimum wage really does nothing for them. You do NO good creating false economies - PRETENDING a job is worth more than it is reduces opportunity and rises inflation, always and everywhere.

The trick to addressing that kind of poverty for about 80 percent of people is to improve their value as an employee. Free upgrades to skills training and education and such so that suddenly they're worth 20 dollars an hour honestly. Also encouraging the kind of buisiness growth that stimulates that kind of job creation.

Then you've got taht last 20 percent - usually with mental health issues or substance abuse issues or other serious conditions that interfere with their ability to be more valueable. Those have to be treated differently - but a raise in min wage will probalby hurt them more than help.

[myata]

2 hours ago, ExFlyer said:

It takes people to work for their sustenance, rather than just take.

It takes where and how, for sure. This is 21st century, and in couple of decades Canada may have mostly low paying irregular employment without benefits except for the PS that already in some places has lottery-based applications and we don't need dark utopias to guess any longer. Then at some point there will be (not if, when) a public budget crunch and... welcome Mexico North. Or China depending.

Many private trades, astronomy level snack and pastry places would follow the path due to collapse of demand and lost capacity to compete in a grossly overpriced market. In can be scary to think of it.. but oh well change is not possible anyways, why bother.

[ExFlyer]

19 hours ago, myata said:

It takes where and how, for sure. This is 21st century, and in couple of decades Canada may have mostly low paying irregular employment without benefits except for the PS that already in some places has lottery-based applications and we don't need dark utopias to guess any longer. Then at some point there will be (not if, when) a public budget crunch and... welcome Mexico North. Or China depending.

Many private trades, astronomy level snack and pastry places would follow the path due to collapse of demand and lost capacity to compete in a grossly overpriced market. In can be scary to think of it.. but oh well change is not possible anyways, why bother.

Well, if Canadians want cheap merchandise, then there will be no "regular" jobs. All our products are made overseas to feed our need for cheap. We are a cpo8untry of service industry, not manufacturing.

But, by providing universal basic income and minimum wage and welfare, we, Canadians only make things worse. Pay for doing nothing...is that the "irregular" jobs you speak of??

[Moonbox]

On 3/24/2023 at 12:09 PM, CdnFox said:

Of COURSE not.  It was a simplified example to demonstrate the concept. Nobody rents a place for 100 dollars a month either.  it was simply to show how something that affected poor people's inflation dramatically might not show up in the larger inflationary picture. Seriously - the 100 dollars didn't tip you off that it wasn't a real world case  study?

The example was irrelevant, because the point was that wage increases don't inflate prices enough to erode the wage increases.  

On 3/24/2023 at 12:09 PM, CdnFox said:

As i noted rents overall might not change much, but rents in parts of towns that tend to be lower income may start to inch up. Or food prices, or the costs of certain other goods.

Sure, they might inch up, but they're not erasing the wage growth.  That's really not how it works.  

On 3/24/2023 at 12:09 PM, CdnFox said:

As far as poor people go - raising minimum wage really does nothing for them. You do NO good creating false economies - PRETENDING a job is worth more than it is reduces opportunity and rises inflation, always and everywhere.

False economies abound everywhere, including (and especially in) a theoretically absolute "free market".  

On 3/24/2023 at 12:09 PM, CdnFox said:

But - it DOES hurt kids just starting out in their careers and looking for their first work experience. They may not be poor - but they're gonna be if they can't start getting some credentials and experience behind them. And remember - the VAST majority of people earning minimum wage are NOT poor people.

So it does have a very negative effect there.

Here's where you should be focusing the argument, on how raising minimum wage can depress the job market if it's too high, especially for lower-skilled and younger workers.  It's still not that simple though, because these sorts of policies aren't merely meant to affect absolute minimum wage, but to also encourage a trickle-up of wage increases on the lower end of the spectrum.  The polarization of wealth is part of the problem these policies aim to tackle, but if we're raising minimum wages and making it easy for companies to outsource goods and services delivery to China and India, we're not really solving any problem.  This is a multi-faceted problem.  

On 3/24/2023 at 12:09 PM, CdnFox said:

The trick to addressing that kind of poverty for about 80 percent of people is to improve their value as an employee. Free upgrades to skills training and education and such so that suddenly they're worth 20 dollars an hour honestly. Also encouraging the kind of buisiness growth that stimulates that kind of job creation.

Ideally, sure, but then there's always a need for low-skill services labor and the wage should be livable.  We also can't just "suddenly" educate and train all of these people anyways.  These are longer-term solutions, and delivering the programs where and when they're needed isn't as easy as it sounds.

On 3/24/2023 at 12:09 PM, CdnFox said:

Then you've got taht last 20 percent - usually with mental health issues or substance abuse issues or other serious conditions that interfere with their ability to be more valueable. Those have to be treated differently - but a raise in min wage will probalby hurt them more than help.

Completely different problem, and not really relevant.  

[CdnFox]

1 hour ago, Moonbox said:

The example was irrelevant, because the point was that wage increases don't inflate prices enough to erode the wage increases. 

But they do and that example showed why they do without causing a spike in general inflation.  Sorry

1 hour ago, Moonbox said:

Sure, they might inch up, but they're not erasing the wage growth.  That's really not how it works.  

That is precisely how it works and of course they do.  One only  has to look at the cost of living increases since the last min wage hike. For poorer people things got worse for them than before the hike within a fairly short time.

That's inflation - the more people have to spend the more prices tend to go up.

1 hour ago, Moonbox said:

False economies abound everywhere,

No they don't. They're pretty rare becaues they don't survive long naturally or in a free market unless the gov't steps in to artificially influence them.

1 hour ago, Moonbox said:

Here's where you should be focusing the argument, on how raising minimum wage can depress the job market if it's too high, especially for lower-skilled and younger workers.

I would tend to agree that this is the more serious threat, and the stats would tend to back that up. But - that's not the argument put forward. The argument is that this is necessary to protect the poor. And it doesn't. So that's where my focus was. But yes - i agree this is a bigger problem. There aren't that many poor earning min wage and fewer still who continue to do so for any length of time.

1 hour ago, Moonbox said:

Ideally, sure, but then there's always a need for low-skill services labor and the wage should be livable.

Why should the wage be livable? Let the students and retired do the jobs. IF there's not enough of them then they'll raise above minimum wage to attract more employees anyway.

jobs should always be worth the value of the benefit they create. Sweeping floors is a low value job. You cannot artificially create value there.

As to the 'instant' part - you can come very close. Offer grants and full pay ei to those going to classes, make sure there's skills training thats short and useful. Everything from how to drive  a forklift to basic bookkeeping to assisant manager stuff - whatever. Layer it on top of more advanced courses people can take over time. Give people value and let them EARN money instead of giving them a fake wage

[Moonbox]

10 hours ago, CdnFox said:

But they do and that example showed why they do without causing a spike in general inflation.  Sorry

Your example showed nothing.  You dropped a bunch of random numbers, and anyone can do that about anything.  

10 hours ago, CdnFox said:

That is precisely how it works and of course they do.  One only  has to look at the cost of living increases since the last min wage hike. For poorer people things got worse for them than before the hike within a fairly short time.

Right...because there's nothing changing in the economy beyond minimum wage hikes. 😑

10 hours ago, CdnFox said:

No they don't. They're pretty rare becaues they don't survive long naturally or in a free market unless the gov't steps in to artificially influence them.

Or when the government has had to step in and break them up.  You're so wrong here it's not even really worth digging into.  The concept of a truly free market is only a theoretical ideal, and has never and will never exist.  

10 hours ago, CdnFox said:

Why should the wage be livable? Let the students and retired do the jobs. IF there's not enough of them then they'll raise above minimum wage to attract more employees anyway.

Because if it's not livable, it perpetuates the cycle of poverty.  Not being able to save money and build wealth is a recipe for hopelessness (see our Reserves), and if businesses can only survive paying what amounts to slave-wages, they're neither viable nor particularly helpful for the economy in the first place. 

Regardless, minimum wage hasn't really changed (after adjusting for inflation) since the 1970's, so we're not even really talking about real increases.  

[TreeBeard]

On 3/22/2023 at 3:35 PM, Moonlight Graham said:

I'm glad our poorest workers will get more income as it pushes up the cost of everything and therefore does absolutely nothing.

I'm glad all of the inflation from minimum wage increases and carbon taxes can be written off as caused by the pandemic inflation.

By that logic, would it be better for the government to set a maximum wage of $17 per hour?   It would keep the costs of everything low, we wouldn’t need to worry about inflation and carbon taxes would be a thing of the past as No one could afford gas to go anywhere anyway.  

[CdnFox]

1 hour ago, Moonbox said:

Your example showed nothing.  You dropped a bunch of random numbers, and anyone can do that about anything. 

Well intelligent people will get it. Next time i'll do it in crayons for you.

1 hour ago, Moonbox said:

Right...because there's nothing changing in the economy beyond minimum wage hikes. 😑

Well no problem - you show me why it changes differently for poorer people and their income got eroded faster and demonstrate all the causes that are affecting inflation and then you'll actually have a point won't you.

Right now your only point is to say "duuuuuuh me no get it no make sense" when simple facts are addressed. And that's really not making much of an argument.

1 hour ago, Moonbox said:

Or when the government has had to step in and break them up. 

When has that ever happened. Give an example. I suspect you don't know what a false economy is.

1 hour ago, Moonbox said:

 

You're so wrong here it's not even really worth digging into.  The concept of a truly free market is only a theoretical ideal, and has never and will never exist.  

Riiiight - just like communism has never been tried because it wasn't "TRUUUUUUEEE' communism. Please.

1 hour ago, Moonbox said:

Because if it's not livable, it perpetuates the cycle of poverty. 

No it doesn't at all. if anything making it livable does. That encourages people to stay in a job that really isn't worth what they're getting paid and never improve. That's not what those jobs are for. Those jobs are to give people enough experience in the work place so that they can go on to a better job that pays above minimum wage.

Again  only about half of one percent of working canadans earn minimum wage as their main income. So you're talking about 100 k people more or less. It would be INFINITELY cheaper and better to subsidize them to learn to imporve their skills and get better jobs.

There would also be a percent of those who are mentally disabled by physical reason or drug abuse etc who simply will never learn more skileld work - but that becomes a social safety net issue and it makes zero sense to just bump up minimum wage in general to address that.

 

1 hour ago, Moonbox said:

Not being able to save money and build wealth is a recipe for hopelessness (see our Reserves), and if businesses can only survive paying what amounts to slave-wages, they're neither viable nor particularly helpful for the economy in the first place. 

Agreed - but nobody is going to save money on minimum wage either. And when you force businesses to pay more than a job is worth that will eventually have serious reprocussions in any economy.

So the answer isn't to lie and pretend the job is worth what it isn't, the answer must be to improve their skills to make them worth more. And perhaps throw in a litlte job placement and such.

All you're doing is trapping them in a cycle of poverty that's not QUITE death

1 hour ago, Moonbox said:

Regardless, minimum wage hasn't really changed (after adjusting for inflation) since the 1970's, so we're not even really talking about real increases.  

well it depends on the province i think. But we're talking about the theory of increases at any rate.

I'm not opposed to the idea of having a minimum wage but there just isn't a lot of thought put into it.  Minimum wages don't really fight poverty at all. They may help make sure younger people (or elderly people) aren't exploited unfairly but as an anti-poverty tool they suck - and the idea that they shoudl be a 'livable' wage "Just because muh feels"  makes ZERO sense. Payment for work has to reflect the value of the work.

[impartialobserver]

It is interesting how when you really pin someone down on how exactly they formulate what a "living wage" is.. they can not say. They give rough estimates and a bunch of vague stuff like it depends on where you live and such. Ok, that's fine but from a purely mathematical/numerical viewpoint, how do you arrive at this number, 18.25 for example and not 18.26 or 18.27. 

 

When I am asked to provide certain data like jobs gained, jobs lost, wages per industry.. I have an exact formula. I get data in this table, that table, join them together. and do some simple math. No vague details.

[CdnFox]

1 minute ago, impartialobserver said:

It is interesting how when you really pin someone down on how exactly they formulate what a "living wage" is.. they can not say. They give rough estimates and a bunch of vague stuff like it depends on where you live and such. Ok, that's fine but from a purely mathematical/numerical viewpoint, how do you arrive at this number, 18.25 for example and not 18.26 or 18.27. 

 

When I am asked to provide certain data like jobs gained, jobs lost, wages per industry.. I have an exact formula. I get data in this table, that table, join them together. and do some simple math. No vague details.

This is what i'm alluding to.  The number seems to be something that 'sounds right' to someone rather than a defensible number.

And going further - is the purpose of minimum wage to guarantee a 'living wage'? That's not my understanding but it seems like the answer ot that is vague and unclear.  What IS the purpose? If it's to fight poverty it's doing a horrible job. If it's to fight exploitation then it might be doing ok maybe - what's the criteria and parameters there?

So we've got a thing where its unclear what it's for, it's unclear how it was calculated, and it's targets aren't defined so it's unclear as to whether or not it's achieving it.

That seems like it's going to succeed well right?

[impartialobserver]

2 minutes ago, CdnFox said:

This is what i'm alluding to.  The number seems to be something that 'sounds right' to someone rather than a defensible number.

And going further - is the purpose of minimum wage to guarantee a 'living wage'? That's not my understanding but it seems like the answer ot that is vague and unclear.  What IS the purpose? If it's to fight poverty it's doing a horrible job. If it's to fight exploitation then it might be doing ok maybe - what's the criteria and parameters there?

So we've got a thing where its unclear what it's for, it's unclear how it was calculated, and it's targets aren't defined so it's unclear as to whether or not it's achieving it.

That seems like it's going to succeed well right?

First thing... it is a good thing that you and I are not politicians. Honestly, would probably never get elected to begin with. If you are too objective.. the eyes glaze over and folks start thinking about what they are having for lunch and such. 

As for its purpose, there is no defined language so all we have is inferring and reading between the lines. My guess is that it is diminish poverty. As to how effective that is... that is not a simple item. First, you have to quantify this. If you base it on ability to purchase simple consumption goods then raising the minimum wage is mostly a lateral move in the long run. 

[TreeBeard]

1 hour ago, impartialobserver said:

It is interesting how when you really pin someone down on how exactly they formulate what a "living wage" is.. they can not say. They give rough estimates and a bunch of vague stuff like it depends on where you live and such. Ok, that's fine but from a purely mathematical/numerical viewpoint, how do you arrive at this number, 18.25 for example and not 18.26 or 18.27. 

 

When I am asked to provide certain data like jobs gained, jobs lost, wages per industry.. I have an exact formula. I get data in this table, that table, join them together. and do some simple math. No vague details.

The fact that it may be somewhat subjective shouldn’t preclude us from saying that $18 is better than $12 as a living wage though, right?  
 

And whether the “true number” is $17 or $18 per hour, we know that most people would prefer to be making $18.   Getting it close is better than being way too low.  

[CdnFox]

1 hour ago, TreeBeard said:

The fact that it may be somewhat subjective shouldn’t preclude us from saying that $18 is better than $12 as a living wage though, right?  

Well yes it should. Without stated intent, stated targets and measured results for all we know it could cause real harm for no benefit.

1 hour ago, TreeBeard said:

 

And whether the “true number” is $17 or $18 per hour, we know that most people would prefer to be making $18.   Getting it close is better than being way too low.  

Well then why not set it to 50? People prefer getting paid 50.  Based on your logic we should do that. Maybe even 100.

I suspect you will say 'that's too much', which shows that even you agree there's a number too high. So unless we know where that is how do we know we didn't go over it?

[impartialobserver]

Does anyone care to guess why certain industries are low wage.. hence the minimum wage comes up? Hint... it is not some conspiracy to screw the workers. 

[TreeBeard]

42 minutes ago, CdnFox said:

Well yes it should. Without stated intent, stated targets and measured results for all we know it could cause real harm for no benefit.

Well then why not set it to 50? People prefer getting paid 50.  Based on your logic we should do that. Maybe even 100.

I suspect you will say 'that's too much', which shows that even you agree there's a number too high. So unless we know where that is how do we know we didn't go over it?

I never said anything about making it an absurd figure.   But whether it’s 18.25 or 18.26 doesn’t really matter much.