How Did Walmart Get Cleaner Stores and Higher Sales? It Paid Its People More

[CliffFletcher]

Originally Posted by GGG

Lowering the minimum wage or reducing child benefits will not help your idealistic scenario as it wasn't a rational decision to be poor in the first place.

I'm not suggesting it would. I'm just musing about the fact that we never even talk about moral authority, social norms, etc. any more. It seems that as a society we've simply abandoned any efforts to change behaviour outside the state manipulating levers of public spending and laws.

[OMG!WTF!]

As for Federal minimum wage increase. Of course. There's a huge difference between Alberta's economy and New Brunswick. As such, the living wages are entirely different. That's why there isn't a federal minimum wage. Even bringing that up misses the point. When the median income for a family of four is over 90,000 in Alberta (or at least was before the downturn), and not quote 60,000 in New Brunswick, things like housing cost significantly different

It's one thing for you to put words in my mouth but when you start imagining Justin's words it's just weird. He told you point blank he's not raising minimum wage because his own government told him it will cost jobs and not create the conditions required for a successful economy. That's pretty much the end of his reasoning. Anything else is just your weird take on things.

And yes it totally reasonable to suggest $15 will cost jobs. How many is something you can fill your boots discussing

[Oling_Roachinen]

Originally Posted by OMG!WTF!

It's one thing for you to put words in my mouth but when you start imagining Justin's words it's just weird. He told you point blank he's not raising minimum wage because his own government told him it will cost jobs and not create the conditions required for a successful economy. That's pretty much the end of his reasoning. Anything else is just your weird take on things.

And yes it totally reasonable to suggest $15 will cost jobs. How many is something you can fill your boots discussing

I'm not sure what words I put in your mouth. But OMG!WTF, you're missing the point. Again. You're talking about Canada. We're talking about Alberta. Trudeau is the Prime Minister, he deals with Canada federally. A federal minimum wage increase would be for every province. Not every province is in the same situation as Alberta. For a couple dollars a day you can live well above the poverty line in certain places in Africa, that does not mean the same holds true in Canada. The same is true for each province in Canada. They have their own situations.

Here's a nice little graph to compare the minimum wages between provinces as a fraction of the median full-time wage:


As you can see, the $15 an hour for Alberta, as shown by the red, works out to be still under 50% of the median income. That still puts it behind PE, NS, NB, and MB's current policies (the blue bars) and pretty much on par with NL, QC and ON. $15 dollars in Alberta is not that different from Prince Edward Island's current $10.50 minimum wage...and it's going up to $11.

The living wage in a place like Prince Edward Island is significantly less than Alberta. $15 an hour in Prince Edward Island would very likely put you well above the poverty line in that province. That's not the case for Alberta.

[puckedoff]

Interesting. Although I'm pretty sure 'Federal Minimum Wage' refers only to people employed by the Federal Government, which is a much smaller fraction of people.

Is the goal to have a high ratio of minimum wage to median wage?

[OMG!WTF!]

Again. You're talking about Canada. We're talking about Alberta. Trudeau is the Prime Minister, he deals with Canada federally. A federal minimum wage increase would be for every province. Not every province is in the same situation as Alberta.

The point is 100% the same. Raising the minimum wage federally as well as provincially doesn't create the right environment for the most people to succeed. We also have the same distribution problem throughout Alberta as they do federally. I can buy a house foe 40k in Hanna. And rent a 500sg ft commercial space for $350 a month. My $15 an hour employee would make more than me.

[Oling_Roachinen]

Originally Posted by puckedoff

Interesting. Although I'm pretty sure 'Federal Minimum Wage' refers only to people employed by the Federal Government, which is a much smaller fraction of people.

Is the goal to have a high ratio of minimum wage to median wage?

As far as I'm aware, there is no federal minimum wage anymore. Removed in 1996. It only affected such a small portion that they got rid of it and made it the same as the province they work in.

I don't know if I would say goal, but for a large number of countries the minimum wage to median wage tends to be around ~50%.
http://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/employm..._data-00313-en

Some as high as 66% in France. As low as 36% median in the United States.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

I'm not suggesting it would. I'm just musing about the fact that we never even talk about moral authority, social norms, etc. any more. It seems that as a society we've simply abandoned any efforts to change behaviour outside the state manipulating levers of public spending and laws.

I think that is because although a social norm is a strong incentive we don't know how to manipulate social norms. aAlso because of the self selection of media and peer groups leads to a weakening of social norms.

[Oling_Roachinen]

Originally Posted by OMG!WTF!

Raising the minimum wage federally as well as provincially doesn't create the right environment for the most people to succeed.

Provide data for this. Especially as a proponent of the old minimum wage of $11.20.

Treating Canada as a whole and ignoring individual province situations doesn't make sense when talking about the economy and the poverty line.

https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-livin...atchComparison

Take a look at some of the most important things for low income earner and the differences between Calgary and Charlottetown:
Apartment (1 bedroom) in City Centre-- Calgary 1,337.38 C$ --Charlottetown 683.33 C$
Apartment (1 bedroom) Outside of Centre-- Calgary 1,054.02 C$ --Charlottetown 618.33 C$
Monthly Transit Pass (Regular Price)-- Calgary 99.00 C$ --Charlottetown 65.00 C$
Basic (Electricity, Heating, Water, Garbage) for 85m2 Apartment-- Calgary 168.96 C$ ---Charlottetown 154.48 C$

On just an apartment, transit pass and utilities it's going to cost a person in Calgary say 600 more a month than in Charlottetown. That's 7200 after tax difference a year. It's huge. It's why a $15 minimum wage in Prince Edward Island makes 0 sense. It's why it might in Alberta.

As for the economy. It's also different. Far more make minimum wage in Prince Edward Island.
http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/75-001-.../tbl02-eng.htm

In 2009, only 1.3% of Albertans were making minimum wage. Of course that's shot up since the increases. But Prince Edward Island had 5.2%. Newfoundland had 9.2%. Where an increase to $15 in Alberta affects 18% of Albertans, and maybe by a buck or two on average, it would affect far more percentage in those provinces and by more than a couple bucks.




Here's job loss data. There's so much conflicting reports that it's hard to say for certain any sort of number. It may be anywhere from a thousand teens losing their part-time job, which is a near non-factor to potentially over 50,000 if you take CFIB report numbers (which as the Canadian Federation of Independent Business many have criticized as being biased and disagree with their assessments). Still with 1,900,000 employees, that 50,000 job loss is 3% which may be considered worth it if now 97% of that 1,900,000 start to leave that poverty zone.

[Hot_Flatus]

Originally Posted by OMG!WTF!

The theory here is an efficient wage. It's essentially a psychological argument that says the employee who is making more than the usual wage for his/her position will apply more effort to the job. And it works. It works great. However when you artificially mandate a higher minimum wage that psychological commitment and motivation goes out the window. You can pay someone twice as much but if that is the least possible amount they could get for doing the same job anywhere else, why bother with trying to earn that wage?

Isn't that a sad way to sum up today's generation/workforce? I feel I should be making more than I do so why try to do my best?.....

This is the attitude that needs to change before you can effectively start adding increased social and benefit programs across the board in this country.