Alberta Politics Thread

[Handsome B. Wonderful]

Originally Posted by Corral

here's what i know about this minimum wage debate.

if you walk into a typical grocery store in Calgary you could pay as much as $4.50 for a single loaf of bread and another $3.00 for 2 litres of milk. Yes you could find it for less - but this $7.50 for both is not for purchasing anything special like organic milk or fancy bread.

So that's 1/2 hour of work before taxes at the $15 min wage.

It would be interesting to know if the same milk and bread only cost $2.50 total in the mid 1990s when apparently min wage was only $5 per hour. maybe it did. But i do think the basic staples these days are very pricey for those on min wage. So i'm all for raising it. Frankly could care less what others think unless they too are working for near min wage.

Consumer Price Index data is available on the Statistics Canada website.

August 1995
Partly skimmed milk, 1 litre

$1.29

Bread, 675 grams

$1.25

0.508 hours work at $5.00 per hour.

August 2016
Partly skimmed milk, 1 litre

$2.30

Bread, 675 grams

$2.99

0.472 hours work at $11.20 per hour (and if it matters 0.353 hours work at the hypothetical $15.00 per hour).

[iggy_oi]

Originally Posted by nik-

People keep talking about it because the example you use for profit margins in a business shows you probably don't have any idea what you're talking about.

Ok so enlighten me

[iggy_oi]

Originally Posted by V

Those look to be about 2% high across the board, based on all of the times I've had to re-up over the last 12 years.

I would agree based on my experience as well, but I believe they are posting the average which even if you compare rates today the there is a 2.5% spread form the highest to the lowest, they may also be only using the major banks in their calculations. I would say that would also apply when looking up the rates from 20 years ago since the data is coming from the same source

[Fuzz]

Originally Posted by iggy_oi

http://www.ratehub.ca/5-year-fixed-m...e-rate-history

You need to look at the second graph. No one pays the price in the first graph. It even says in the text:

While the Bank of Canada has the most comprehensive data set, with the high prevelance of mortgage rate discounting, it is not the most accurate. The Canadian Association of Accredited Mortgage Professionals estimates that the average discount applied to a 5 year mortgage rate in 2010 was 1.42%. To source the discounted rates, we have combined our proprietary data supplemented with discount brokerage data from 2006-2010.

And most people can get lower than the discounted rate, with a little effort. "That sounds a bit high, I'd be willing to pay 0.3% bellow that" is about how much effort it takes, and a little patience while they call someone who can actually make a decision.

[CliffFletcher]

Why is the price of buying a home even relevant? Are we really suggesting every job should provide enough income to buy a house? When I was earning < 1k a month, I rented a place with two roommates. Everyone I knew did too. Even renting a place to yourself is something of a luxury, and not something I'd consider an essential quality of life issue. Most people live and share expenses with other people, and always have.

[Resolute 14]

Originally Posted by iggy_oi

My point is you are consistently devaluing the contributions minimum wage workers make. So I was asking how you compare the two, but you choose to not answer and that's fine. I think the best scenario is where both the employer and the employee are able to not burden the economy. Raising the minimum wage may help in this regard, the status quo will not. And yes I'm well aware that some businesses may suffer but am fairly confident the negative impact felt by employers who are employing only 10% of the workforce in this province will not cripple our economy.

I would say it is more accurate that you are overvaluing the contributions of low skill tasks. As to your point, neither of the scenarios you offered me achieves your best scenario. Either some minimum wage workers require some government aid - which burdens the economy in your argument - or some lose their jobs entirely and require government aid - which burdens the economy.

So would you feel that if a worker earns his employer $75k in profit while earning $25k for himself he is a less valuable contributor to his employer than a worker who makes his employer $100k in profit while earning a salary of $50k? The reason people don't want to work minimum wage jobs is simply because they pay minimum wage, there are a lot more unskilled labour jobs that pay much higher because people don't want to do that work. Working in fast food isn't the most complicated job, but I wouldn't classify it as easy either or even enjoyable in some cases. The argument of anyone can do those jobs and that's why they pay so low is misinformed. There are a lot of jobs that anyone can do that pay more than minimum wage.

I can use arbitrary numbers too. How would you feel if a worker earns $25k for himself and only $5k in profit for his employer, and raising his wage to $31k ($15x40hr per week) causes the business to go under, thus putting everyone in the enterprise out of work?

Also no, it is not misinformed. Anyone can do those jobs (give or take a handicap) and when there is a glut of available workers, the wages fall. That actually happens in most industries, skilled or otherwise.

And please spare us the "I did it this way and it worked out fine" the reality is if you are referring to a time period over 10 years ago than that is completely irrelevant to today's economic landscape. Inflation has outpaced minimum wage by a sizeable margin.

Already noted by others, but no, it hasn't.

No, you are continuing to ignore the answers to your questions that are in many of my posts. The initial(potential) job losses that occur will slow down the economy in the short term if employees and employers are out of work due to a shut down, however the lost revenue generated from consumer dollars by those businesses will be spent at other businesses which will allow those businesses to grow and that will create more jobs, plus the other people who will be earning more will also have more money to contribute as well as to invest in potentially starting up their own business which will also help.

You are acting like wage increase is the only factor at play. Even if we ignore all other factors, rising wages will result in rising prices. Certainly the workers lucky enough to still have jobs at the new $15 rate will have increased purchasing power, but it will not rise as fast as you think, because rising costs due to higher labour costs will reduce everybody's purchasing power.

This is exacerbated by the numerous new taxes and fee increases Notley and Trudeau are implementing.

Right now you're reading this likely waiting to type "yeah but everything else will get more expensive" some businesses may raise prices to compensate yes, but you are ignoring the fact that the wages of 90% of the employees in this province will be completely unaffected by this change. Which services that you use will really go up? Groceries? Superstore is the cheapest place to go for groceries by far and their workers make much more than $15 on average. You don't like shopping at superstore? Well then you don't mind paying more for your groceries anyways so the point is moot. Rent will go up? Something tells me the current vacancy rate would slow down any kind of an increase.

Well done anticipating me.

Hint: the prices will go up in the jobs where people are most likely to be making below Notley's dream minimum wage. Further hint: those tend to be the same places you are reading about going under and putting people out of work.

Going to eat out at a fast food place? Those companies have the ability to absorb the cost without raising prices, to anyone who wants to debate this, ask yourself this, why would they be opening up new locations everywhere if they weren't making mountains of cash? Yeah they might try to raise prices, but that will only go as far as out consumer buying power let's it. When the customers stop coming in, the prices will fall, if they continue to go up, that's not because of minimum wage, it's because we're willing to pay way too much for garbage food.

but that will only go as far as out consumer buying power let's it

Bingo.

Small businesses may suffer if they cannot adapt but I'm not sure why you are so concerned about their well being but not for those they are keeping poor. Yes they are creating jobs, but not ones that are a positive contributor to the economy. And yes if they close down jobs will be lost, my earlier point in this post addresses your short term concern.

Your earlier point is so ill-informed and so full of wishful thinking that I can only sit here in wonder at your impressive ability to perform mental gymnastics.

They fact that you say it wasn't easy growing up in and working your way out of the lower class should be enough of an argument in itself to make changes to the system. Did you have kids while you did it? Were you physically or mentally ill? Did you have any additional issues? Think about those folks before you cast judgement.

Once again you resort to appeal to emotion. Once again, I remind you that the value of a task is not the same as assessing the value of the individual. The fact that you continue to conflate the two indicates you are not actually interested in serious discussion.

Do you hold resentment towards society for having it so hard growing up and that's why you don't appear to care that it is even harder now? I just don't get it, according to you you overcame significant odds and made it despite the challenges which is great, I'm sure anyone here would applaud you for being able to do so.

No resentment at all. Merely an understanding that for most, one merely has to apply themselves to advance. Yes, there are people in situations where they need a hand up, and I don't begrudge them the support they do get. But I do not see the value in allowing the majority to become satisfied to do low value jobs.

And more to the point, the argument CliffFletcher has been making and which you and others are utterly ignoring is that the people most likely to lose their jobs entirely are the very people these changes are meant to support. Does society benefit from higher unemployment among youth? You spoke of "near insurmountable challenge in order to break free of poverty" at one point without understanding that your fix may actually raise that wall even higher for many.

Even at $15/hour you would be hard pressed to own a car or an apartment, and if you do it isn't going to be on the high end of either even if you do manage to. What that wage will do for most minimum wage workers is give them a real opportunity to make a choice as to whether or not they want to continue making minimum wage or not.

$15 per hour full time is $31,200 over the course of a year. In November 2015, the average rate to rent was $1332 for a two-bedroom apartment. People in minimum wage situations would be in units below that average, as you note, but we will use this number for simplicity. With a roommate, a person would be paying $666 per month in rent, or $8000. Many utilities are often included, some aren't. This is an arbitrary figure, but lets assume about $300 for what you do have to pay, including internet. Split two ways, $1800 a year. You can get a car for only a couple grand. Ongoing insurance rate between $75-150 per month (assuming your insurance isn't raised by poor driving decisions - at that point, you probably can't afford). Or, you are taking the bus. Low income pass is $44 per month; $528 per year.

At $15 per hour, you are doing just fine. The question, is how the person who was making $11 is going to do now that you have put them out of a job.

[Flash Walken]

Originally Posted by KevanGuy

Minimum wage was less than that back then. More like $5.50.

Huh, so cliff was making substantially more than minimum wage.

The equivalent of say $15 compared to $11?

Huh.

[username]

Originally Posted by Delgar

Your posts demonstrate a lack of understanding of the costs of doing business.

The more and more I read Iggy's posts I'm starting to think he's actually Joe Ceci

[LanceUppercut]

Originally Posted by username

The more and more I read Iggy's posts I'm starting to think he's actually Joe Ceci

I think you give Joe Ceci too much credit.

[corporatejay]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

Why is the price of buying a home even relevant? Are we really suggesting every job should provide enough income to buy a house? When I was earning < 1k a month, I rented a place with two roommates. Everyone I knew did too. Even renting a place to yourself is something of a luxury, and not something I'd consider an essential quality of life issue. Most people live and share expenses with other people, and always have.

Well Cliff you are debating two things here. Sure if you are in your mid-20s living in a house with 2 roommates works but if you are an immigrant with a family you need to be able to rent something decent (two bedroom apartment for example).

[TheoFleury]

Wtf do the price of homes and interest rates have to do with minimum wage? Not everyone should be entitled to own a house, certainly not some McDonald's burger flipper. That's the kind of crap that helped fuel the 08 housing collapse.

[Flash Walken]

Originally Posted by TheoFleury

Wtf do the price of homes and interest rates have to do with minimum wage? Not everyone should be entitled to own a house, certainly not some McDonald's burger flipper. That's the kind of crap that helped fuel the 08 housing collapse.

The cost of housing has increased as interest rates have decreased. This increases the cost of rental housing.

According to the consumer price index the cost of rent in calgary increased by 28 percent between 2002 and 2015.

[DiracSpike]

iggy_oi is the perfect epitome of someone's mindset when they are forged in the fires of unionized group-think. Profits are a dirty word, employers are a force to be defeated, our fair share...

The market generally does a good job ascribing worth to different occupations, you may disagree or take issue with some jobs getting paid x, but it doesn't change the fact that whoever is scratching those cheques thinks the person is worth that much. That's how a free market economy works, the best system ever devised by man. A minimum wage is necessary to prevent abuses, and it's worth raising it every once in a while, but jacking it up 50% puts unneccessary strain on businesses providing those jobs. You know, the people who took risks and invested their money, who have a lot more skin in the game than low-skill workers.

If you're convinced that you bring 75k value to your employer but only get paid 25K guess what, start your own business and then you can make those profits but the other side of the coin is you take on the risk. You can't have it both ways.

[CliffFletcher]

Originally Posted by Flash Walken

Huh, so cliff was making substantially more than minimum wage.

The equivalent of say $15 compared to $11?

Huh.

I made $900 a month. That's $100 more a month than welfare at the time. What are your personal experiences living at or near the poverty line?

[TheoFleury]

Originally Posted by Flash Walken

The cost of housing has increased as interest rates have decreased. This increases the cost of rental housing.

According to the consumer price index the cost of rent in calgary increased by 28 percent between 2002 and 2015.

Mortgages going up does increase the cost of rent to be sure, but they are also are somewhat of an independent market. Newer rental units would likely have fresher mortgages but much of the rental market is already fully owned. I don't know the exact stats or anything but the biggest factor in rental prices is supply and demand.

A market like Calgary had pretty close to zero vacancy for years, I think that had more to do with the rising price of rent than anything. Not much you can do about that, but I'm thinking in many cases the rent charged was way in excess of the costs of the actual unit. Not all units have comparable costs but they operate in the same market.

Off topic: I do feel for low income people caught in a rental market squeeze, but imo the onus is on the government to help subsidize those people if you're going to do anything. You can't put a cap on rent otherwise landlords will want to sell, which could further exacerbate the problem as people will want to get out of the game, causing less supply. It's a big enough pain in the ass managing rental units without that BS. For a time I netted about $700 a month renting out a second property. It wasn't worth it because it pretty much morphed into another fulltime job, full of stresses and headaches.

[CliffFletcher]

Originally Posted by corporatejay

Well Cliff you are debating two things here. Sure if you are in your mid-20s living in a house with 2 roommates works but if you are an immigrant with a family you need to be able to rent something decent (two bedroom apartment for example).

We are debating two things. A group of people believe - against all evidence to the contrary - that most people earning minimum wage are adults trying to raise a family. I've said repeatedly, and so have others, that there should be income supplements for the small fraction of minimum wage earners who are adults raising children. But raising it dramatically across the board will almost certainly result in the loss of many part-time and entry-level jobs for young people, which carries with it serious long-term consequences, not only the viability of a lot of businesses with low profit margins, but the long-term employment prospects of those same young people.

[VladtheImpaler]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

We are debating two things. A group of people believe - against all evidence to the contrary - that most people earning minimum wage are adults trying to raise a family. I've said repeatedly, and so have others, that there should be income supplements for the small fraction of minimum wage earners who are adults raising children. But raising it dramatically across the board will almost certainly result in the loss of many part-time and entry-level jobs for young people, which carries with it serious long-term consequences, not only the viability of a lot of businesses with low profit margins, but the long-term employment prospects of those same young people.

Exactly. The talk about "respect" and "living" wage is a bunch of sound-bite crap. Minimum wage jobs are that because literally anybody can do them - the consumer can do all these jobs, so the consumer is paying for the convenience to have someone else do it for them. The wage such a job garners is subject to two major forces (simplistic - I am sure there are more subtler ones): (1) from the low end, it has to pay enough that someone will want to do it; (2) from the high end, it has to be low enough, so that the "product" of the business is cheap enough that the consumer will choose to pay for the service, rather than do the job himself/herself. Thus, in a reasonably free economy, the market will dictate a tipping point where the jobs are mostly filled and consumers mostly can afford the product. In boom times, if you will recall, it was tough to fill these jobs, so you saw Tim's paying $16/hr to counter staff, and anybody willing could get a construction job. Now, the trend is obviously in the opposite direction, as there are plenty of people looking for work and plenty of consumers cutting back, so raising the minimum wage to an artificially high level will result in the destruction of a certain number of businesses/jobs built around menial tasks. Hence... idiots.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by Corral

here's what i know about this minimum wage debate.

if you walk into a typical grocery store in Calgary you could pay as much as $4.50 for a single loaf of bread and another $3.00 for 2 litres of milk. Yes you could find it for less - but this $7.50 for both is not for purchasing anything special like organic milk or fancy bread.

So that's 1/2 hour of work before taxes at the $15 min wage.

It would be interesting to know if the same milk and bread only cost $2.50 total in the mid 1990s when apparently min wage was only $5 per hour. maybe it did. But i do think the basic staples these days are very pricey for those on min wage. So i'm all for raising it. Frankly could care less what others think unless they too are working for near min wage.

How do you spend 4.50 on a loaf of bread? If you are working for minimum wage you shouldn't be buying $4.50 bread. $1.50 to $2 per loaf tops. And milk in a 4L jug is about $5. The cost of mil has gone up less then inflation as 20 years ago it was just under a dollar per liter.

[Flash Walken]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

I made $900 a month. That's $100 more a month than welfare at the time. What are your personal experiences living at or near the poverty line?

I dropped out of highschool at 16 to help my parents pay rent then lived below the poverty line working labour jobs like stacking blocks, moving furniture and setting tile for the next 8 years.

I made 9 dollars an hour in 2003 unloading shipping containers at a warehouse to help offset the cost of student loans for university. That was 1 dollar above minimum wage.

Now, should we draw straws to see who unzips first?

edit: I mean, I have to laugh here at an old fart talking about his tough breaks working in the 90s at what was nearly double minimum wage and equating that to now. Talk about walking up hill to in 6 feet of snow both ways to school. Hell, 9 bucks an hour is closer to the minimum now than it was then.

That would be like me saying 18 bucks an hour is close to minimum wage.

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by DiracSpike

iggy_oi is the perfect epitome of someone's mindset when they are forged in the fires of unionized group-think. Profits are a dirty word, employers are a force to be defeated, our fair share...

The market generally does a good job ascribing worth to different occupations, you may disagree or take issue with some jobs getting paid x, but it doesn't change the fact that whoever is scratching those cheques thinks the person is worth that much. That's how a free market economy works, the best system ever devised by man. A minimum wage is necessary to prevent abuses, and it's worth raising it every once in a while, but jacking it up 50% puts unneccessary strain on businesses providing those jobs. You know, the people who took risks and invested their money, who have a lot more skin in the game than low-skill workers.

If you're convinced that you bring 75k value to your employer but only get paid 25K guess what, start your own business and then you can make those profits but the other side of the coin is you take on the risk. You can't have it both ways.

Work in any business in sales, you basically need to generate 7 or 8 times times your annual salary + commissions in sales to keep your job.

If your making a 100k a year in combined earnings. You'd better be bringing in at least 700 or 800k a year at more then 20% profit, which is $140,000 to $200,000 in profits. And that's raw profits. Sales dollars - cost of product of service. Because you basically have to pay to have a desk and a computer and lights and a assistant and coffee etc.

For most commodity based sales, usually the profit margin is probably at 10% so if you're getting paid a 100k in combined earnings, and you sell a straight commodity, at some point you'd better be bringing in more then a million in sales, or at the very least have some services at 30 or 40% profit to top things up.

When someone says to me that they bring in 75k in profits and should get 25k of that I wonder where the logic in in that calculation, because a person that bring in 75k in profits and wants 25k isn't looking at the realism that there is a cost of doing business to the owner and there's a lot more happening in the background that needs to be paid for out of those profit dollars.