Alberta Politics Thread v2

[edslunch]

I’m in favour of a higher minimum wage. I don’t know if $15 is the right number, but I strongly feel that the escalation has been too fast, especially given the downturn. Maybe the first two were ok for catch up, but the next step should have been delayed and the $15 step put off even further.

My approach is no more scientific but it seems common sense to me that rapidly increasing wages in a short period of time must have an adverse affect on a business at least for a while.

[Oling_Roachinen]

Originally Posted by Dion

Why don’t greedy companies pay their employees higher salaries?

Oped piece for information puroposes



https://www.millennialstar.org/why-d...gher-salaries/

Information purposes? This has to be the worst article for information I've read on the subject. "Why don't owners pay more?" "They don't want to, it might be bad for them." Cool story bro. If you're going to bring up an argument for what the market will bear," provide some proof that $7.25 is that number and not some other, higher, number.

[Oling_Roachinen]

I'm to the point that if your business is only viable because you're able to pay the equivalent of a full-time employee $14,000 a year, then your business sucks. Tough luck. Some other company will come along to replace you.

Also, last post obviously aimed at the article writer and not Dion.

[CaptainCrunch]

I would think that the balance point is that the expectation of minimum wage workers is going to increase.



If a business owner is going to pay a higher wage there's going to be a higher expectation. He's not going to hire one or two floor sweepers at lets say $15.00 an hour when he can hire one who's either a well trained floor sweeper or has the ability to get the job done faster for $25.00.


The biggest mistake was not putting an age limit on minimum wage, I don't know if that's the right term to use. Why hire a student with no experience and give him that experience when he can probably go out and try to find someone with experience who you can lay a higher expectation and work load on?

[TheIronMaiden]

I wonder how many small businesses in Alberta pay minimum wage in comparison to large corporations.

[Oling_Roachinen]

Originally Posted by edslunch

I’m in favour of a higher minimum wage. I don’t know if $15 is the right number, but I strongly feel that the escalation has been too fast, especially given the downturn. Maybe the first two were ok for catch up, but the next step should have been delayed and the $15 step put off even further.

I think a better assessment of the number would have been good. I think a better solution to the tipped vs not tipped workers needed to be addressed. A server making $15/hour and then getting tipped and not declaring all of it on taxes just simply isn't the same as a any other non-tipped worker. But I think the increase overall was a lot better than not increasing it substantially.

[CaptainCrunch]

Tipped servers and youth workers still living at home and going to school were too areas for example that should have been treated differently.

[Oling_Roachinen]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

The biggest mistake was not putting an age limit on minimum wage, I don't know if that's the right term to use. Why hire a student with no experience and give him that experience when he can probably go out and try to find someone with experience who you can lay a higher expectation and work load on?

Yeah, Ontario has a structure where students and liquor servers are paid below the minimum wage for the rest of the province. Which makes sense, it's also not substantial but maybe enough to make a difference.

UK has a minimum wage age bracket (under 18, 18-20, 21-24) and account for apprentices. So students under 18 and apprentices have a minumum wage of about half of those over 25.

[Tacopuck]

While I have never been a fan of any minimum wage I do understand the need for it from a political perspective.

What really bugs me is that its always some arbitrary number (ie $15/hr). If a minimum wage is going to be implemented it should be tied to some sort of cost of living metric and automatically updated on set intervals based on that metric and not just a nice round number that is great for picket boards and campaign slogans.

But alas politics....

[Oling_Roachinen]

But still, the equivalent of a typical salaried full-time employee and a waged earner making $13.60 an hour (so 5 days a week, 8 hours a day, 2 weeks of vacation) is $27,200. For a "full-time employee" defined by Stats Canada as someone working 30 hours a week, you're looking at ~$20,000.

This was even less under the old holiday pay requirements.

People complaining about minimum wage earners making too much...

[Oling_Roachinen]

Originally Posted by Tacopuck

While I have never been a fan of any minimum wage I do understand the need for it from a political perspective.

What really bugs me is that its always some arbitrary number (ie $15/hr). If a minimum wage is going to be implemented it should be tied to some sort of cost of living metric and automatically updated on set intervals based on that metric and not just a nice round number that is great for picket boards and campaign slogans.

But alas politics....

So $18.15? That's the living wage in Calgary. Imagine the blow-back from all the greedy people who don't want to pay $13...

http://livingwagecanada.ca/files/271...ief_062117.pdf

[belsarius]

Originally Posted by TheIronMaiden

I wonder how many small businesses in Alberta pay minimum wage in comparison to large corporations.

That would be an interesting number to see. Anecdotally I feel that most small businesses that are not in the food service industry generally pay more than minimum wage, or at least I think that may have been true at $10.20. At $13.60 I would say a lot more businesses are now doing it.

I can see the greed point when looking at cashiers for Wal-Mart, but I think it is less greed and more simple viability for Joe's Diner. Another reason the minimum wage is just a blunt instrument to accomplish anything.

[Tacopuck]

Originally Posted by Oling_Roachinen

So $18.15? That's the living wage in Calgary. Imagine the blow-back from all the greedy people who don't want to pay $13...

http://livingwagecanada.ca/files/271...ief_062117.pdf

The metric and formula would be key in determining the $. A government set one should have non-partisan support (difficult I know).

A number put together by some advocacy group is hardly an indicator of where it should be as they can skew the formula. The methodology is one based from Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives which is a left leaning organization.

Example that # is based on a family of 4, including one that is child that is not in school (Age 3 ie needing daycare). It also has a weird line item as parent education of ~$90/month... wtf is that (What school / job training charges this?).

Why should the government rate be based on such a specific scenario?

[Oling_Roachinen]

And also, 70% of minimum wage earners are over 20. 50% are full-time. 60% have worked at their business for more than a year. 70% are non-student. 75% are high school graduates.

So the idea that minimum wage is intended for the high-school student working part-time at his first job at McDonald's isn't reality. Maybe they should have accounted for that, but that is very much the minority of minimum wage earners.

[Oling_Roachinen]

Originally Posted by Tacopuck

It also has a weird line item as parent education of ~$90/month... wtf is that (What school / job training charges this?).

Detractors: Minimum wage should be for non-skilled employees used as a stepping stone while they are educated and trained for other jobs.

Also detractors: How dare they budget for training and education to get out of their low-earning jobs!

[Tacopuck]

Originally Posted by Oling_Roachinen

Detractors: Minimum wage should be for non-skilled employees used as a stepping stone while they are educated and trained for other jobs.

Also detractors: How dare they budget for training and education to get out of their low-earning jobs!

No I'm just merely pointing out this is obviously for a very specific scenario. They also have like ~$250/month for ... furnishings?

I cant imagine many job training / school that charges ~$1000/yr is getting you a job that is going to pay $50k+... If they wanted to be truly honest that cost should be much higher.

Im just pointing out that this particular study seems like an arbitrary set of "costs" put together to show that the min wages needs to be MUCH higher, and not indicative of true individual budgets.

[Oling_Roachinen]

$1000 a year? Let's say ESL to start.

But again, as it's a livable wage it uses extremely modest numbers for the rest of the non-essential budgets. If it put up the $5000 required for some other training course and the living wage jumped up to $20, you'd have people argue that it was, once again, inflated.

[Tacopuck]

Originally Posted by Oling_Roachinen

$1000 a year? Let's say ESL to start.

But again, as it's a livable wage it uses extremely modest numbers for the rest of the non-essential budgets. If it put up the $5000 required for some other training course and the living wage jumped up to $20, you'd have people argue that it was, once again, inflated.

Well then I'd argue doing the training before you have 2 kids? I mean having children is a choice after all.

[PepsiFree]

Originally Posted by Tacopuck

Well then I'd argue doing the training before you have 2 kids? I mean having children is a choice after all.

Everything is a choice.

[Oling_Roachinen]

Originally Posted by Tacopuck

Well then I'd argue doing the training before you have 2 kids? I mean having children is a choice after all.

Oh, so they should have made proper choices throughout their life to avoid being in poverty.

And if they didn't? Tough ####. Gotcha.