Quote:
Originally Posted by Locke
I'm not going to do the whole epic 'why Locke is again Minimum Wage Increase' rant again. This will probably be the 5th time (?) I've outlined exactly why but I'll give you the coles notes version:
Why raise minimum wage? To help people who have to live on it.
Who are those people? Information suggests that the vast, vast majority of people on minimum wage are very young, or very old and that its supplemental, ie. they're not living on that money they're using it as an addition to regular income.
The number of people who are in dire straights and living off of minimum wage is actually very small, I vaguely recall a number of people under 10,000.
There are more efficient ways to help those people than to give every single person what amounts to a pretty HUGE RAISE.
Secondly by raising everything for everyone you effectively raise nothing for anyone.
The whole point is purchasing power. If you flood the economy with a high minimum wage the cost of everything will increase as a result so their snazzy new $15/hour will buy them exactly the same amount as their last wage did while levying a hefty increase in prices on everyone.
Thats the nutshell of it. If you want the whole meal deal contact a moderator and see if they can dig up my initial posts on it in the original thread.
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While your thinking is correct, unless everyone got the same % raise, it would still increase the purchasing power of those on minimum wage.
Unless you are claiming that the net effect of raising minimum wage is a near identical raise for everyone in the province, on average. This might be true, in the long run, but I would not guess that is the expected result, if all other variables are kept constant.