Quote:
Originally Posted by Frank MetaMusil
Your issue is with conglomerate businesses, but as everyone is saying, they are the least affected by it.
What you're ignoring, is the fact that these changes hurt small business the most. If you're so concerned about the lower classes of income, don't ever go to Tim Horton's/McDonald's/Wal-Mart again. Support local business only.
The problem is, you just turn around and say that business isn't viable if it goes under. There's no respect from socialists when Ma's deli can't compete with wages & costs of doing business.
IMO a much better solution for lower class earners would be a complete income tax exemption.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by VladtheImpaler
I might as well be trying to start fires by ESP. It's not Tim's that will go under. It's Jim's Lawn Maintenance and Sally's Painting. And each of those has 2 or 3 or 5 employees... But, yes, they are evil capitalists, so **** them.
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I will put this to both of you, what percentage of the 300k Albertans currently being paid less than $15/hour do you think work for small businesses compared to larger companies and corporations? Years ago I worked for a small locally owned fast food restaurant and was paid above minimum wage, I'm not saying that is the norm, but I'm pretty confident that it is not an isolated case either. Less than 2% of Albertans earn minimum wage as is, so that means less than 2% will see the full $3.80/hour increase. Of the 300k who will see an increase there is probably a fair chunk that make over the current median between in the wage gap which is $13.10/hour, so for anyone making that much or more the raise will be 14.5% or less, and that would not come until October 2018, although there would be a much smaller bump to $13.60 in October 2017.
The examples you've given of a painter or a landscaper seem to be jobs that would be paying closer to the $15/hour(if not more) than the $11.20/hour. But I understand that you were just giving examples. We would truly need to see the data of how many small businesses are employing people at what rates of pay to truly determine how big the impact would be. I can only speak from my experience which has been that in today's world, the bigger companies are paying a lot of workers minimum wage or close to it. I don't think anyone would argue that while $11.30/hour is not technically minimum wage it is basically the same thing. If you look at all the fast food restaurants and all the Walmart's in Alberta and you do the math on it you can come to the conclusion that a large number of those earning under $15/hour are working at companies that can afford to pay this wage but a choosing not to unless force.
Everyone is looking at the problems this could cause businesses but no one seems to want to look for any solutions other than saying don't do it it's bad. Restaurants were an example given yesterday, those workers there typically get paid minimum wage plus tips, most places don't tax their employees tips, could they not start doing that? Or perhaps just start directly adding a gratuity to patrons bills? Their are solutions, but the fact is most businesses would prefer the safer bet of status quo so they will attack this in every possible way.
Yes things like the carbon tax play a role in all of this as well, but that is what it is. It is there an will make things more costly for everyone, but do you really think that if they hadn't introduced it and instead just went with the $15/minimum wage you wouldn't be hearing the same things from business owners? Every single time the minimum wage is raised the same thing happens, business owners say it's going to cost jobs and workers say it still isn't enough.
Try to keep this in mind when your read things like the story about the western feedlot closure, we don't know what all the financial numbers were that were involved with their decision making, the same as with, to a lesser extent, a lot of the oil and gas companies who decide to look elsewhere for opportunities. Maybe that company was hurting financially before and this was the final nail in the coffin? Or maybe $5M in profits wasn't worth the investment to them compared to what they were making before. Has anyone here seen a financial report of theirs? The most I could find was a reported average annual revenue of $80M but no indication of how much the new taxes and farming rules was costing. Should we really be continually putting ourselves on the back burner in the interest of business owners just because they say it's in our best interest? Yes the jobs they provide are good, but the power and control we give them to completely flip everything upside down whenever it serves their interests is not. Take away any tax or wage increase you want, companies can up and leave you hanging dry at any time because they don't owe you a job, but if they are employing you and you are helping them make money and the local economy is helping them make money, in my opinion they should not be given so much leverage to dictate what we should or shouldn't want or get.