Quote:
Originally Posted by nfotiu
The problem I have is why is $15 this magic number that is the right number for the whole country? $15 is nothing in NYC, while it let you live very comfortably in Iowa.
If a small town economy is set up so that rent is cheap, food and other goods are inexpensive, then a big boost in min wage is going to disrupt that whole local economy.
Calgary has a $15 min wage, and when I go back there I am shocked at how expensive everything is. There are a lot of places in the US that $7-8/hour will go a whole lot further than $15 would in Calgary.
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It's not a magic number, but it's a reasonable start. It's one of those
don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good situations. If $15 is nothing in NYC, then maybe the market will mandate a higher wage there, but you still need a floor. $2 is obviously not a good floor. $4 isn't, either, but we're getting warmer. You can kind of do that all the way up to a certain point, and it looks like $15 has been deemed to be that point.
A move like this can also serve to educate people that they are exploiting others. When Alberta announced they were going up to $15, I supported it and bumped all my affected staff up to higher salaries to make sure they were being compensated fairly relative to minimum wage. I did have some at $15 when I think MW was $12 or whatever it was. I put them up to $18 upon the
announcement of the new wage and just bumped up my prices accordingly. Profit margin didn't change and my customers paid the increase (as they should).
Businesses are just going to have to adjust what they charge. It shouldn't be hard, either, as they do it all the time. Prices on raw materials, rent, utilities, insurance, etc. are always in a state of flux and businesses adjust to react. Labour is no different - you'll hear a lot of prick business owners bellyaching about it, but really all they have to do is adjust their prices and that'll be that. All their competitors will be doing the same so they lose nothing with respect to a competitive advantage they may have had if they exploited worse than their peers.