Quote:
Originally Posted by timun
I appreciate the detailed response. I get that $15/hr hits your bottom line quite hard, but at the same time the comparison against your inflation-adjusted $10.48/hr just isn't capturing the full story. That may be the 'official' number using the CPI, but in reality the costs to young people have risen massively more than that.
E.g. I just hired an intern engineering student, who'll be paid about $24/hr, which is about $6/hr (33%) more than the going rate 15 years ago. Over those 15 years the annual schooling costs have gone up 40%.
Respectfully you are being a little "old fashioned" in even thinking that 18 to 23-year-olds are looking for "beer and gas money". A little beer money, sure (hahaha), but few are looking for gas money: generally operating a car is far too expensive for them. Insurance alone is up>25%, just in the last couple years. ~1/3 of young adults don't even have driver's licences.
In actual dollars they make a lot more than we did at their age, but adjusted for purchasing power for the expenses that young people actually have at that time in their lives (i.e. post-secondary education) they're no better than you were at $8/hr.
Frankly, if we're being perfectly honest, washing dishes is a ####ty dead-end job paying poverty wages because just about anybody can do it. It's no surprise to me whatsoever that you're having trouble finding "reliable, motivated people"; who the hell would be "motivated" about such a job?
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Nice thought out response! I understand I'm never going to find someone who's passionate about washing dishes but it would be nice to find people motivated to make money and work at least!
Tying my point back to yours about purchasing power;
I believe arbitrarily raising minimum wage reduces everyone's purchasing power by raising the cost of basic goods where minimum wage employees are employed.
I mean you could drop taxes in the first couple of tax brackets and achieve the same goal of more buying power. But that would take money out of the pockets of the government instead of small business and the middle class. Locke had it right that it's just poor policy that gives people the warm and fuzzies. There's no rationale behind providing a "living wage" for anyone and everyone. We have multiple programs and policies and tax breaks to deal with supporting kids, welfare, low income housing, EI, job placement, education grants, etc.
Anyways this his spiralled out of control Not sure if the mods can split this thread or want to. I think if we really wanted to help minimum wage employees, there is a better way to do it than throw money at the problem.