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» babble   » walking the talk   » labour and consumption   » Fight for a $10 minimum wage

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Author Topic: Fight for a $10 minimum wage
Labour Council
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posted 30 January 2007 07:47 AM      Profile for Labour Council     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
A MILLION REASONS TO RAISE THE MINIMUM WAGE

Over one million people in Ontario earn less than $10 an hour, working in jobs where they are underpaid and undervalued. Most low-wage jobs are not found in small business - instead they are with retail giants, fast food chains, or temp agencies. Why should wealthy companies be allowed to pay poverty wages?

The fact is that if minimum wage had kept up with inflation, it would be $10 today.

The Toronto & York Region Labour Council has joined with community groups and
the student movement to launch a major campaign in support of MPP Cheri DiNovo's Bill 150, to raise Ontario's minimum wage to $10.

Send a message to the Premier and your MPP by going to:
www.labourcouncil.ca, or www.amillionreasons.ca
And please, pass on this message to everyone on your contact list.

[ 30 January 2007: Message edited by: Labour Council ]


From: Toronto | Registered: Jan 2007  |  IP: Logged
scooter
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posted 31 January 2007 09:33 AM      Profile for scooter     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Geesh...here in Calgary a $10 minimum wage would be a pay cut for just about everyone work at "minimum wage" jobs.
From: High River | Registered: Apr 2004  |  IP: Logged
Fidel
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Babbler # 5594

posted 31 January 2007 09:37 AM      Profile for Fidel     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
That's good! Albertans shouldn't object to raising it then if it's beneath their expectations.
From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004  |  IP: Logged
HeywoodFloyd
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Babbler # 4226

posted 31 January 2007 10:37 AM      Profile for HeywoodFloyd     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Oops. Misread the line.

[ 31 January 2007: Message edited by: HeywoodFloyd ]


From: Edmonton: This place sucks | Registered: Jun 2003  |  IP: Logged
HeywoodFloyd
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Babbler # 4226

posted 31 January 2007 10:44 AM      Profile for HeywoodFloyd     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
It would be nice to see how they generated that number as according to stats can only about 239000 workers make the minimum wage.
From: Edmonton: This place sucks | Registered: Jun 2003  |  IP: Logged
Fidel
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posted 31 January 2007 11:23 AM      Profile for Fidel     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by HeywoodFloyd:
It would be nice to see how they generated that number as according to stats can only about 239000 workers make the minimum wage.

That's ok, because it's ONLY one in four Canadian workers earning anywhere BELOW $10 bux an hour.


From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004  |  IP: Logged
HeywoodFloyd
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Babbler # 4226

posted 31 January 2007 11:24 AM      Profile for HeywoodFloyd     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
And of course the link to that is........where?
From: Edmonton: This place sucks | Registered: Jun 2003  |  IP: Logged
lonewolf2
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posted 31 January 2007 12:29 PM      Profile for lonewolf2     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Ontario government has nixed any further minimum wage increases...

Ont. says minimum wage hike is last one for while

quote:
TORONTO — Thursday's 25-cent raise in Ontario's minimum wage is the last one workers can expect for the foreseeable future, Labour Minister Steve Peters said Wednesday as critics continued to call for a "real living wage.''

Peters said he's proud the Liberal government fulfilled its election promise to raise the minimum wage to $8 an hour while not hurting businesses.

"Ontario did not see a raise in the minimum wage for nine years, and we campaigned in 2003 (saying) we would be moving the minimum wage,'' he said.


Political answer - just call it a success and the public will buy it.

Remember that when you vote, and think about why unions are necessary to get fair wages.


From: Toronto | Registered: Oct 2005  |  IP: Logged
Doug
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Babbler # 44

posted 31 January 2007 02:17 PM      Profile for Doug   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by HeywoodFloyd:
It would be nice to see how they generated that number as according to stats can only about 239000 workers make the minimum wage.

The million is not referring to how many make minimum wage, it's referring to how many people make less than $10 an hour, which would obviously be a larger number than those who make minimum wage now.


From: Toronto, Canada | Registered: Apr 2001  |  IP: Logged
HeywoodFloyd
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posted 31 January 2007 02:31 PM      Profile for HeywoodFloyd     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
I know. I'm just trying to figure out how they got there. I didn't see any obvious reference on their site.
From: Edmonton: This place sucks | Registered: Jun 2003  |  IP: Logged
Fidel
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posted 31 January 2007 02:48 PM      Profile for Fidel     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by HeywoodFloyd:
And of course the link to that is........where?

quote:
(b) Canada as a low wage country
A persistently deficient labour market is the major structural source of child poverty in Canada. Until the mid-1990s, child poverty generally rose and fell with the unemployment rate. Starting in 1995, however, the child poverty rate continued to go up even after the unemployment rate went down. A full-time job stopped being a guaranteed escape from poverty.

Canada stands out as a low-wage country, second only to the U.S. among industrialized countries. Almost one in four workers, or 2 million adults, are in low wage employment in Canada. This compares to 1 in 20 in Sweden, or 1 in 8 in Germany. Low paid is defined as earning less than two-thirds of the national median hourly wage. In Canada, this is less than $10 an hour


da Feds


From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004  |  IP: Logged
HeywoodFloyd
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posted 31 January 2007 02:50 PM      Profile for HeywoodFloyd     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Thanks for the link.
From: Edmonton: This place sucks | Registered: Jun 2003  |  IP: Logged
Fidel
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posted 31 January 2007 03:12 PM      Profile for Fidel     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Increase minimum wage to $10 an hour/NO to Ontario MPP pay raise Sign the petition

quote:
To: Ontario MPPs

Recently, two proposed bills by the Government of Ontario have come to our attention as concerned Ontario residents, namely - the proposed increase of minimum wage to $10 an hour, and the 25% pay increase for Ontario MPPs.

It is our hope that a) MPPs do not receive this raise, and that b) minimum wage be increased to $10 an hour.

While many struggle in our communities to feed themselves, it is appalling to think that MPPs salaries increase from $88, 771 to $147, 700.

Even though the Liberal government has raised minimum wage in recent years, it still has not kept up with inflation. In essence, the current minimum wage has less purchasing power than it did in 1995.



From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004  |  IP: Logged
bruce_the_vii
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posted 31 January 2007 04:48 PM      Profile for bruce_the_vii     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by scooter:
Geesh...here in Calgary a $10 minimum wage would be a pay cut for just about everyone work at "minimum wage" jobs.


This is what we hear and read about Calgary and Lethbridge (but not Edmonton). In fact Toronto and other Canadian cities have good economic growth but the difference with Calgary is the federal government has not yet overwhelmed the local economy with pre-mature immigration. If immigration was timely the wages at the bottom might be $12 in most Canadian cities with good growth. The depression of the wage at the bottom is a tax and the marginal tax rate of the current worst paid would be as high as the upper middle class by this measure. You just try and tell the government that immigration isn't a panacea.


From: Toronto | Registered: Dec 2006  |  IP: Logged
Chezhank
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posted 31 January 2007 07:37 PM      Profile for Chezhank     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
I was incensed to read what Conservative leader John Tory had to say about a $10.00 minimum wage for Ontario.

“Ontario Conservative Leader John Tory said that while there's a clear need to continually adjust the minimum wage, it shouldn't come in the form of a 20 per cent increase."We should be looking at doing this every year or every second year," said Tory.”

This in light of the fact that he had taken a 25% wage increase.


From: Thunder Bay , Ontario | Registered: Dec 2006  |  IP: Logged
a lonely worker
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posted 31 January 2007 08:49 PM      Profile for a lonely worker     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Thanks for posting the links to the petitions. I signed them and will be forwarding them on to others.

One day I would love to see a maximum wage being instituted. Then we can use all the same bs arguments agianst the robber barons they use against our society's most vulnerable (decreased productivity, inflation, loss of jobs, blah, blah blah ...).


From: Anywhere that annoys neo-lib tools | Registered: Jul 2005  |  IP: Logged
lonewolf2
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posted 31 January 2007 09:05 PM      Profile for lonewolf2     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Signed it too.

This is what the internet was meant to do - mobilize and communicate!

Thanks


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Wilf Day
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posted 31 January 2007 09:46 PM      Profile for Wilf Day     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Staff at our local WalMart earn $8.95 per hour. This includes a woman trying to raise two kids on her own.

As the the Million Reasons Campaign website's letter says:

quote:
Dear Premier McGuinty

Far too many people in Ontario earn less than $10 an hour, working in jobs where they are underpaid and undervalued. If minimum wage had kept up with inflation, it would be $10 this year. The single most effective step to improve incomes would be for the Ontario government to raise the minimum wage.

I support Bill 150 to raise Ontario’s Minimum Wage to $10/hour. I want you, my MPP, and the Premier to vote Bill 150 into law this year.

The time to act is now.



From: Port Hope, Ontario | Registered: Oct 2002  |  IP: Logged
bruce_the_vii
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posted 31 January 2007 09:48 PM      Profile for bruce_the_vii     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
An increased minimum wage would inflate a little but the inflation is really a transfer of wages to other people. Thus purchasing power is preserved and while some jobs would be lost others would be created. It does not cost jobs on net. The transfer of wages is not unpopular as typically there's a family member making a low wage somewhere.

An increase in minimum wage would not cost jobs directly but it would slow growth, making it harder for entrepreneurs. However Ontario is an immigration country and the slowing of growth really implies a slowing of immigration.

John Tory says a low minimum wage is necessary for business, jobs, but this is not so in Southern Ontario cities. John Tory neither knows what he's talking about or cares what he's talking about.

The fact the the 109 MPs got a raise has nothing to do with running the economy, sorry.


From: Toronto | Registered: Dec 2006  |  IP: Logged
Michelle
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posted 01 February 2007 04:56 AM      Profile for Michelle   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
I'm listening to some dickwad on CBC radio right now pushing the idea that the minimum wage shouldn't be raised because he thinks it's better for the economy for there to be "more money in the pockets of small business owners" to "create more jobs" and to "put more money into the economy".

I remember working for a small business owner during my minimum wage days. He had a boat and a car and an SUV and a small truck and a cottage and a house. We had dick all except six bucks an hour. And he always cried poverty and said he was "struggling to get by" when we asked for a raise.

According to this crackpot on the radio, my boss should have kept that money to keep the economy afloat with his purchases of cars and vacation homes. Because apparently distributing some of that money to us minimum wage earners wouldn't have affected the economy at all, right? I've got news for you, buddy. People making $10 an hour will spend all of it right away too. They are also economic actors.

I know not all small business owners are like that. I know there are some who are struggling. (That's the funny thing about this guy - first he argues that if you leave minimum as it is, then there will be more money in the pockets of employers to hire more employees. But then he claims that small businesses are struggling even now - so how does he figure that people who are struggling even now are "creating more jobs"?) And damn it, you don't get to stay open on the backs of people who aren't being paid enough to live. I'm sorry, but it shouldn't work like that. If you can't afford to pay your workers properly, then you can't afford to be open for business.

[ 01 February 2007: Message edited by: Michelle ]


From: I've got a fever, and the only prescription is more cowbell. | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
Boom Boom
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posted 01 February 2007 05:32 AM      Profile for Boom Boom     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
I wish there was a way to make financial holdings of all businessmen public, especially those that insist on paying nothing but the minimum wage to their employees. There needs to be moral outrage expressed when there's an obvious huge gap between the lifestyles of business owners and their employees. You could say the same for huge corporations that pay their CEOs millions of dollars in salary yet rely on employees at or near the minimum wage level. Where's the moral outrage at the lifestyle gap between those at the top and those at the bottom?
From: Make the rich pay! | Registered: Dec 2004  |  IP: Logged
M. Spector
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posted 01 February 2007 02:18 PM      Profile for M. Spector   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Canadians don't know what to make of poverty. We're uncomfortable with it, don't think it should exist and are not sure it does.

When we think of poor people, most of us take a stylized view. We prefer the poor to be virtuous and plucky, rather like the heroes of Charles Dickens's Victorian novels.

In our stylized view of the world, the poor should live in abject squalor. So, we are often taken aback when we find that, in Toronto for instance, real poor people live in tidy apartments, eat french fries and watch television.

If they can afford to watch television, we ask ourselves, how can they be poor?

We tend to view the poor through the lens of a stern Calvinist morality. If they are chippy, unruly or not particularly polite, we decide they do not deserve our largesse. We ask ourselves why we should feel sorry (and pity seems to be the operative word when dealing with poverty) for people who wear nose rings or drink beer.

We expect the poor to shut up and be grateful. Secretly, and sometimes not so secretly, we think they are not like us – that they lack moral fibre. If that's the case, we tell ourselves, then the poor will always be with us and there is nothing that can be done.

In fact, that's not true. Recent experience shows that it is possible to help people either avoid poverty or lift themselves from it – if a country wants to make the effort.


Thomas Walkom

From: One millihelen: The amount of beauty required to launch one ship. | Registered: Feb 2005  |  IP: Logged
Fidel
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posted 01 February 2007 02:30 PM      Profile for Fidel     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
We expect the poor to shut up and be grateful. Secretly, and sometimes not so secretly, we think they are not like us – that they lack moral fibre. If that's the case, we tell ourselves, then the poor will always be with us and there is nothing that can be done.

It reminds of that movie, Mississippi Burning. Hack Geneman is telling Willem Dafoe that his father once explained to him why their black neighbor's barn? or tractor? got burned up in a fire. He said to the boy, ~~"You gotta to be better than someone."


From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004  |  IP: Logged
bruce_the_vii
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posted 01 February 2007 04:31 PM      Profile for bruce_the_vii     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by Michelle:
I'm listening to some dickwad on CBC radio right now pushing the idea that the minimum wage shouldn't be raised because he thinks it's better for the economy for there to be "more money in the pockets of small business owners" to "create more jobs" and to "put more money into the economy".

[ 01 February 2007: Message edited by: Michelle ]


This is dickwad territory all right. In much of Canada the problem is too many jobs and that's why we let in immigrants. Low wage earners are heavily subsidized by everyone else such that entrepreneurs that survive by low wages are also heavily subsidized, they are a social bad.

My interest is economics and I've read a widely and found all this jingles level of analysis -- we need entrepreneurs for the jobs they create and so on. All it is is jingles, these people don't know what they are talking about.

If minimum wage goes up certain entrepreneurs will be put out of business. These will be the least efficient, most dependant on low wages and least able to inflate their price due to lack of consumer interest yet the media will report this as "the dark side of minimum wage" The money not spent at said entrepreneur will be spent elsewhere, creating jobs.

[ 01 February 2007: Message edited by: bruce_the_vii ]

[ 01 February 2007: Message edited by: bruce_the_vii ]

[ 01 February 2007: Message edited by: bruce_the_vii ]

[ 01 February 2007: Message edited by: bruce_the_vii ]


From: Toronto | Registered: Dec 2006  |  IP: Logged
Fidel
rabble-rouser
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posted 01 February 2007 04:35 PM      Profile for Fidel     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Ya, who does that dickwad think will spend their extra earnings in local shops and small b's around town ?. Low income people won't be hording it away for a trip to the bahamas, or to buy another roach motel to rent to even more low income people, that's for sure.

[ 01 February 2007: Message edited by: Fidel ]


From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004  |  IP: Logged
Advocacy2005
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posted 01 February 2007 06:39 PM      Profile for Advocacy2005   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by Michelle:
I'm listening to some dickwad on CBC radio right now pushing the idea that the minimum wage shouldn't be raised because he thinks it's better for the economy for there to be "more money in the pockets of small business owners" to "create more jobs" and to "put more money into the economy".

I remember working for a small business owner during my minimum wage days. He had a boat and a car and an SUV and a small truck and a cottage and a house. We had dick all except six bucks an hour. And he always cried poverty and said he was "struggling to get by" when we asked for a raise. [ 01 February 2007: Message edited by: Michelle ]


I don't know why businesses shouldn't be paying at least $10 an hour. In 1996, when I operated another type of business, my lowest paid worker was paid $10.00, plus bonuses.

The optics over this minimum wage debate is going to bite the Liberals in the *ss come election time, especially since they gave themselves a 25% wage hike when they didn't think anybody was watching.

Further to the minimum wages, a substantial hike in disability and O.W. is also in order. As somebody that works with people who fall "between the cracks" sometimes, NOT increasing these benefits IS costing the government tons of money -- esp. if they want to go on about taxes.


From: Ontario | Registered: Jan 2006  |  IP: Logged
lonewolf2
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posted 02 February 2007 05:45 AM      Profile for lonewolf2     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
More reasons why unions exist, and shows how unscrupulous employers try to get around minimum wage increases, even when its only 20 cents an hour:

quote:
A popular Toronto restaurant has backed down after trying to claw back most of the extra 20 cents an hour it has to pay its minimum-wage waiters.

Joe Badali's, on Front St. at University Ave., told servers it would start charging them $2 a shift to cover the costs of washing their aprons and providing notepads and cash envelopes.

That charge – up from 50 cents a shift – would wipe out most of the benefit waiters would get from the government's decision to increase the minimum wage.

...For most Ontarians the minimum wage went up 25 cents yesterday to $8 an hour. For waiters who serve liquor – and are expected to make extra money in tips – the rate went up 20 cents to $6.95.

... When asked about the $2 charge, Mike O'Connor, vice-president of Joe Badali's, was defensive.

"How did you hear about that?" he said.

"This isn't something I feel is necessary to discuss. It was a decision we made in-house and we've discussed with staff members the reason why we made the decision."

Less than 30 minutes after the Star called about the charge, O'Connor called back to say the restaurant had scrapped the plan and would stick with its existing 50-cent deduction to cover apron washing.


Joe Badali's


From: Toronto | Registered: Oct 2005  |  IP: Logged
Michelle
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posted 02 February 2007 06:56 AM      Profile for Michelle   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Why the hell are they charging them for apron washing to begin with when the owners are probably pulling in megabucks?

I'll be damned if I'll ever go there.

[ 02 February 2007: Message edited by: Michelle ]


From: I've got a fever, and the only prescription is more cowbell. | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
Lard Tunderin' Jeezus
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posted 02 February 2007 07:15 AM      Profile for Lard Tunderin' Jeezus   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
"It wasn't always that way," she said. More than 15 years ago, she was making $12 an hour, plus benefits, at a Toronto manufacturing company. Today, she finds work through a temp agency and recent jobs have paid $8.50 to $9.00 an hour.
The temp agency business provides a steady stream of victims to these bottomfeeders. It's way past time to regulate the hell out of this sector. Job security is non-existent today, and the part-time shuffle is the primary reason.

From: ... | Registered: Aug 2001  |  IP: Logged
Michelle
Moderator
Babbler # 560

posted 05 February 2007 05:23 AM      Profile for Michelle   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Hey, two letters to the editor in two weeks.

Restaurant owner nickel-and-dimes staff

Hee! lonewolf keeps posting articles that tick me off, I write letters to the editor. Seems to work well. They dropped a line from it, though. I said something about how those are obviously costs of doing business that should be covered by the restaurant, but they lopped that part off of my sentence.

Oh well.

[ 05 February 2007: Message edited by: Michelle ]


From: I've got a fever, and the only prescription is more cowbell. | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
oreobw
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posted 05 February 2007 10:04 AM      Profile for oreobw     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
My two cents...the wage should go to $10 now and be indexed, probably to inflation, and adjusted quarterly or yearly (sort of like the CCP).

That way we would not have to depend on politicans to raise it every few years.


From: Toronto | Registered: Jan 2007  |  IP: Logged
Steppenwolf Allende
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posted 05 February 2007 01:06 PM      Profile for Steppenwolf Allende     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
I'm listening to some dickwad on CBC radio right now pushing the idea that the minimum wage shouldn't be raised because he thinks it's better for the economy for there to be "more money in the pockets of small business owners" to "create more jobs" and to "put more money into the economy".

Yep, well this dickwad, like most of his dictatorial corporate capitalist kind, is a liar.

The fundamental economic fact is that it is not business owners, including small business owners, who create jobs and put money into the economy.

Rather, it is the non-profit consumer spending and tax payments that come mostly from the wages and salaries of working people that does this.

Owning a business (and, btw, I do own one) creates nothing. Rather, it is the utilitarian investment of money that people make in order to trade and acquire the things they need to live and thrive (food, clothing, services, goods of every kind, and just about everything else)--and almost all of this comes from working people in one form or another.

When wages and related benefits are cut or fail to keep up with the cost of living, the economy stagnates, personal debt shoots through the roof and people getting poorer and less free. Eventually chronic unemployment and under employment set in and it goes from there.

History shows this happening again and again everywhere all the time. they only reason why these types of corporate brown-nosers and liars push this crap about not raising the minimum wage or wages generally is that they are dedicated to the destructive economic practice of various power cliques (corporate bosses, capitalists, banks, select bureaucracies, etc.) sucking as much wealth as possible off workers efforts and peoples' backs, taking it out of the economy and using it as leverage to blackmail everyone with it.

That's their vision of success. That's also the cause of just about every major war, depression, dictatorship, criminal syndicate, mass murder and genocide, persecution and oppression, ecological destruction, fiscal fraud or collapse and social and moral decay in the last 500 years.

If folks want to see some facts on how minimum wages increases actually improve the economy and help alleviate poverty for many people, here are some links:

http://www.policyalternatives.ca/index.cfm?act=news&do=Article&call=1032&pA=F4FB3E9D&type=2

http://www.cupe.ca/updir/Thirty_Years_of_the_Minimum_Wage.pdf

[URL] http://www.cucbc.com/ [/URL]

URL] http://www.fiscalpolicy.org/press_040421.stm [/URL]
[URL] http://www.fiscalpolicy.org/minimumwageandsmallbusiness.pdf [/URL]

[URL] http://www.epinet.org/content.cfm/webfeatures_snapshots_07192004 [/URL]

[URL] http://www.higherminimumwage.com/stats.html [/URL]

[URL] http://www.epinet.org/content.cfm/issueguides_minwage [/URL]


From: goes far, flies near, to the stars away from here | Registered: Aug 2006  |  IP: Logged
Sean Cain
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posted 08 February 2007 11:51 AM      Profile for Sean Cain   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Dear Mr. Coyne,

There are several erroneous assumptions in your January 10, 2007 National Post article "The Injustice of the Minimum Wage." In it, you state that if the minimum wage "is fixed by law above the market level, it must be at a point where the supply exceeds the demand. Economists have a technical term for that gap. It's called 'unemployment.'" I assume that the "supply" in this equation are workers. But this means that unemployed people are leaving welfare or EI and entering the workforce because of greater incentives (in this case, higher wages). Isn't this a positive economic indicator?

The market does a good enough job at creating unemployment on its own. It doesn't need any help from the government. Besides, don't policy makers at the Bank of Canada and the Department of Finance justify a certain level of unemployment in the 6-8% range anyway as a means of keeping inflation in check?

If wages for low-income workers increase, then the technical term for economists is not "unemployment," but "increased aggregate demand," because businesses don't create jobs just because wages are lower. Businesses create jobs when they have customers at their front door, and it is difficult to do when the wages of low-income and working class Canadians have been declining in real terms for years.

The idea that economists who have supported high interest rates, zero inflation, and corporate-managed free trade are concerned with unemployment is truly touching, but it ignores the greater impact that the an increased minimum wage has on the economy.

A major 2004 study done by the Fiscal Policy Institute based in New York analyzed the impact of increases in the minimum wages in certain U.S. states over the past ten years. As their final report said, “Total employment in the higher minimum wage states increased by 6.2 percent from January 1998 to January 2004, 50 percent greater than the combined job growth of 4.1 percent for the other states where the (lower) federal minimum wage prevailed.”

Many also argue that a large portion of minimum wage workers are young (which is correct), and therefore increasing it will only effect students. But this fails to take into account that a $10 minimum wage will also put upward pressure on low wages generally, which will help those in the ten to twelve dollar an hour range, a vast majority of which are adults, some of whom must support entire families on that income.

And even if every minimum wage worker was between the ages of 16 and 24, since when do young people not face enormous costs in post-secondary education, transportation, rent and other basic necessities? I’ll just assume here, Mr. Coyne, that you would like to believe that tuition fees have been abolished, public transportation and car insurance for young people is affordable, and rent in places like Toronto is really cheap. Sounds good to me.


Sincerely,

Sean Cain
Oakville, Ontario

"Free market economics is the art of making the comfortable feel comfortable."

[ 11 February 2007: Message edited by: Sean Cain ]


From: Oakville, Ont. | Registered: Dec 2002  |  IP: Logged
Kevin_Laddle
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posted 08 February 2007 12:24 PM      Profile for Kevin_Laddle   Author's Homepage        Edit/Delete Post
It is a crime that in a country as rich as Canada we can justify having workers earning less than the living wage. The neo-liberal economists, greedy business owners, and hateful neo-con politicians who have allowed us to reach this point quite literally have blood on their hands for all the people whose lives have fallen to the dangerous cycle of crime, drugs, and homelessness that economic hopelessness often leads to. Any fat cat business owner who would dare pay his or her employees such a disgustingly small wage deserves to be run out of business. Maybe it would teach these assholes a lesson to experience the hardship they so brazenly condemn their employees to.
From: ISRAEL IS A TERRORIST STATE. ASK THE FAMILIES OF THE QANA MASSACRE VICTIMS. | Registered: Feb 2005  |  IP: Logged
M. Spector
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posted 11 February 2007 02:59 PM      Profile for M. Spector   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
The $10 minimum wage is the issue in Ontario, according to Howard Hampton.

The CCPA has a fact sheet and a good 3-page monograph on the subject:

quote:
Since the minimum wage in Ontario was frozen by the Harris government in 1995, average industrial wages have increased by 25%. As of February 1, 2007, Ontario’s minimum wage will have increased by 16.7% over the same period.

It wasn’t always this way. Ontario’s minimum wage
used to be more in line with the province’s industrial wage. In fact, the minimum wage in Ontario was as high as $9.97 in 1976 (adjusted to 2007 dollars, based on the Toronto area consumer price index).

In 2005, the minimum wage increased by 4.2%. To put that in context, in 2005 the average CEO’s salary in Canada increased by 39%.



From: One millihelen: The amount of beauty required to launch one ship. | Registered: Feb 2005  |  IP: Logged
Stephen Gordon
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posted 11 February 2007 03:56 PM      Profile for Stephen Gordon        Edit/Delete Post
It astonishes me that anyone who claims to be progressive would want to sell the minimum wage as 'the' issue. As anti-poverty measures go, increasing the minimum wage is pretty much useless: most people who earn minumum wage are not in poverty, and most people who are in poverty don't earn minimum wage.

I've spent a not-inconsiderable amount of time looking at this literature, and nothing - I repeat: NOTHING - I've seen suggests that increasing the minimum would have anything more than a symbolic effect. And these issues are far too important to spend energy on symbols.


From: . | Registered: Oct 2003  |  IP: Logged
jeff house
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posted 11 February 2007 04:07 PM      Profile for jeff house     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
most people who earn minumum wage are not in poverty

Well, I'd like to know how many of the people earning minimum wage are actually wealthy.

I recognise that in some instances, minimum wage earners can be young people still at home, etc.

But by and large, the minimum wage earners I see are mired in poverty and forced into dependence on others to keep their heads above water.


From: toronto | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
Michelle
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posted 11 February 2007 04:10 PM      Profile for Michelle   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Another point?

I don't care if a minimum wage earner is not living in poverty, although many, many are. The work is valuable in itself.

And I'm not willing to let the people who ARE self-supporting adults or self-supporting university students suffer poverty just because other minimum wage earners have another income in their household.

I don't give a damn whether my father makes a million dollars a year and lets me live in his mansion - if I have a minimum wage job, I deserve to be paid PROPERLY for the work I do.


From: I've got a fever, and the only prescription is more cowbell. | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
unionist
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posted 11 February 2007 04:11 PM      Profile for unionist     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by Stephen Gordon:
It astonishes me that anyone who claims to be progressive would want to sell the minimum wage as 'the' issue. As anti-poverty measures go, increasing the minimum wage is pretty much useless: most people who earn minumum wage are not in poverty, and most people who are in poverty don't earn minimum wage.

Stephen is correct (we seem to have this running dialogue every time). Those who promote minimum wage legislation as an "anti-poverty" measure are on the wrong track. Minimum wage legislation is a protective measures - like maximum hours, minimum vacations, right to refuse unsafe work, notice of technological change - aimed at reducing the exploitation of workers, whether the worker happens to come from a wealthy household or an impoverished one. It's also designed to tell employers what standards of abuse our society will not permit them to descend beneath.

I'd be more sanguine in supporting Stephen's argument's about minimum wage not being a solution to poverty, if he were a little more enthusiastic about supporting increasing the minimum wage for all the right reasons. Sadly, he still buys into the "job-killer" neurosis, albeit in a more sophisticated fashion. So, while we are both right, we must agree to differ!!!


From: Vote QS! | Registered: Dec 2005  |  IP: Logged
bruce_the_vii
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posted 11 February 2007 04:15 PM      Profile for bruce_the_vii     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Minimum wage increase would help the worst paid if not the poorest. So it's getting caught up in semantics. Minimum wage is a fairness issue and people are offended by $8 an hour wages in rich cities. Minimum wage has some technical advantages such as it's an intergeneration transfer of funds which can be sold. Poverty, on the other hand, would require big expendatures, percentage points of the economy. The ace in the hole for minimum wage is a tight market would improve it as has happened in Calgary and Lethbridge.
From: Toronto | Registered: Dec 2006  |  IP: Logged
Stephen Gordon
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posted 11 February 2007 04:15 PM      Profile for Stephen Gordon        Edit/Delete Post
Actually, I agree that for the sorts of increases under consideration, the effects on employment are likely to be minimal. But that still doesn't mean that the effect on poverty will be anything more than symbolic.
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Michelle
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posted 11 February 2007 04:21 PM      Profile for Michelle   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
When I was making minimum wage, I was living in desperate poverty trying to support myself. If I made a couple of bucks more per hour, I would have been much, MUCH better off.

Don't try to tell me that giving the lowest-paid workers in society a two dollar raise wouldn't relieve their poverty at least to some extent.


From: I've got a fever, and the only prescription is more cowbell. | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
Stephen Gordon
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posted 11 February 2007 04:24 PM      Profile for Stephen Gordon        Edit/Delete Post
An earned income tax credit would be much more effective in reducing poverty.
From: . | Registered: Oct 2003  |  IP: Logged
Erik Redburn
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posted 11 February 2007 04:50 PM      Profile for Erik Redburn     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
How much would someone making eight dollars an hour save via a tax credit, as opposed to getting 25% more upfront? We won't even include the potential revenues lost for social programs which low end workers tend to rely on more. Or are we still talking meta-economic theory, where businesses just can't Afford workers over eight measly dollars per but would surely hire More for less? (we won't even include what the meta-economic impact of too many low wage jobs have)
From: Broke but not bent. | Registered: Feb 2004  |  IP: Logged
Michelle
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posted 11 February 2007 05:01 PM      Profile for Michelle   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by Stephen Gordon:
An earned income tax credit would be much more effective in reducing poverty.

Well heck, I'll bet doing both would be even bestest!


From: I've got a fever, and the only prescription is more cowbell. | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
unionist
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posted 11 February 2007 05:05 PM      Profile for unionist     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by Stephen Gordon:
An earned income tax credit would be much more effective in reducing poverty.

An increase in the minimum wage would be paid for by employers.

An earned income tax credit would be paid for by everyone.

Why should everyone have to pay for employers to be required to pay a decent minimum fair wage according to non-Third World standards to Canadian workers?!

The employers want to hire labour, they should pay for it - and not below $10.00/hour.


From: Vote QS! | Registered: Dec 2005  |  IP: Logged
Stephen Gordon
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posted 11 February 2007 05:09 PM      Profile for Stephen Gordon        Edit/Delete Post
Lots of people who are in poverty earn more than minimum wage, but limited by the number of hours they can work. A minimum wage increase will do nothing for them.
From: . | Registered: Oct 2003  |  IP: Logged
Stephen Gordon
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posted 11 February 2007 05:12 PM      Profile for Stephen Gordon        Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by unionist:

An increase in the minimum wage would be paid for by employers.

An earned income tax credit would be paid for by everyone.

Why should everyone have to pay for employers to be required to pay a decent minimum fair wage according to non-Third World standards to Canadian workers?!

The employers want to hire labour, they should pay for it - and not below $10.00/hour.


Uh, uh, uh. That's what we call tax incidence. Employers might be obliged to write larger paycheques, but if they can pass on those costs to their customers, then we'd all pay for it anyway.


From: . | Registered: Oct 2003  |  IP: Logged
Erik Redburn
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posted 11 February 2007 05:16 PM      Profile for Erik Redburn     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Maybe, maybe not. But lots of people working in minimum wage jobs Would earn a bit more, which would mean they could abit spend more too, which would be good for some small business owners too. Maybe even creating more job opportunities down the road.
From: Broke but not bent. | Registered: Feb 2004  |  IP: Logged
Erik Redburn
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posted 11 February 2007 05:21 PM      Profile for Erik Redburn     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by Stephen Gordon:

Uh, uh, uh. That's what we call tax incidence. Employers might be obliged to write larger paycheques, but if they can pass on those costs to their customers, then we'd all pay for it anyway.


If they can pass them on. If other customers can't shop elsewhere, if other outlets automatically raise prices too, if the price of sugar/widgets makes more difference to workers than hourly wages, and if the promise that savings on their end will translate into earning on the other guys.


From: Broke but not bent. | Registered: Feb 2004  |  IP: Logged
M. Spector
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posted 11 February 2007 05:29 PM      Profile for M. Spector   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Hey, we're all paying for the 39% increases for CEO's.

Why shouldn't we all be paying for the same minimum wage (in purchasing power) as Ontario had thirty years ago?


From: One millihelen: The amount of beauty required to launch one ship. | Registered: Feb 2005  |  IP: Logged
Erik Redburn
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posted 11 February 2007 05:49 PM      Profile for Erik Redburn     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
What, a higher minimum wage hasn't ruined job creation in Ontario? I'm shocked. I never saw much evidence that BC going to what was "unheard of" Eight per Hr hurt business either. Just a lot of huffing and puffing by Chamber of Commerce types, who never seem to mind CEOs giving themselves million dollar hikes.

I guess someone still has to paid to watch the till or sweep the floors, and if everyone has to face the same floor the pain of two extra dollars per eventually fades.


From: Broke but not bent. | Registered: Feb 2004  |  IP: Logged
Palamedes
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posted 11 February 2007 08:32 PM      Profile for Palamedes        Edit/Delete Post
One other thing to consider is:

Should there be a different minimum wage for high-school students? These are people looking to get a little extra spending money with a part-time job who generally live at home with their parents.

Should there be a different minimum wage for large urban centres as compared to small towns? Generally, the costs of living in Toronto are much higher than small rural towns? Should that be factored in?


From: Toronto | Registered: Dec 2006  |  IP: Logged
unionist
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posted 11 February 2007 08:42 PM      Profile for unionist     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by Palamedes:
Should there be a different minimum wage for high-school students? These are people looking to get a little extra spending money with a part-time job who generally live at home with their parents.

Absolutely - great idea!

In fact, the whole principle of "equal pay for equal work" should be abolished. It's unfair!

Two auto assembly workers, or taxi drivers, or brain surgeons, should no longer be paid the same amount for doing the same work. We should look at their savings and investment portfolios, and whether their spouses and kids have incomes, and whether they have wealthy aunts and uncles, and pay the rich less!

[ 11 February 2007: Message edited by: unionist ]


From: Vote QS! | Registered: Dec 2005  |  IP: Logged
Sean Cain
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posted 11 February 2007 11:09 PM      Profile for Sean Cain   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by Stephen Gordon:
Lots of people who are in poverty earn more than minimum wage, but limited by the number of hours they can work. A minimum wage increase will do nothing for them.

Wrong. You're forgetting that increasing the minimum wage does not only effect minimum wage workers, it positively effects everyone making the minimum wage up to and including the NEW minimum wage (workers who presently make between $8 and $10 an hour, who make up more than 20% of Ontario's workforce).

In addition, it puts upward pressure on wages that are slightly above $10 an hour, which would definitely help those in poverty, many of whom are not "rich kids" who still live at home.

Although it is true that a majority of minimum wage workers are young people, since when do they live cheaply while paying for things like post-secondary education, rent and transportation?

Does anyone who needed a car when they were in their early 20's remember trying to buy auto insurance, or paying tuition fees for university?

[ 11 February 2007: Message edited by: Sean Cain ]


From: Oakville, Ont. | Registered: Dec 2002  |  IP: Logged
Fidel
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posted 12 February 2007 12:41 AM      Profile for Fidel     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Yes, Sean. And what about the many Canadian workers who earn anywhere below $10 bucks an hour ?. ie. $8.50 to $9 dollars an hour. Because there are single parents and single people struggling on those wages as well. Five toonies an hour has the potential to raise hourly wages of a lot more than just poor teenagers trying to save enough money to pay oppressive costs of post-secondary in order to avoid indentured servitude for an average of 17 to 25 years of their lives in this frozen Puerto Rico. Past Liberal governments should have unleashed our student loan feds and debt collection agencies on Nazi war criminals who lived the rest of their lives hassle-free in Canada by comparison. Not all young Canadians have money bags for parents, and not all low wage earners are teenagers.

[ 12 February 2007: Message edited by: Fidel ]


From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004  |  IP: Logged
bruce_the_vii
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posted 12 February 2007 01:17 AM      Profile for bruce_the_vii     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
The minimum wage should actually be $12 an hour. Specifically it should be that in the urban areas for non-students. The "costs jobs" aspect of minimum wage is it slows growth, makes marginal entrepreneurial activity more difficult. However S. Ontario cities are immigration destinations so you are actually talking about slowing immigration.Cities with tight labour markets, ie. timely and appropriate immigration, have $12 an hour wages at the bottom anyway. This is the case in Calgary at this time.

[ 12 February 2007: Message edited by: bruce_the_vii ]


From: Toronto | Registered: Dec 2006  |  IP: Logged
Fidel
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posted 12 February 2007 02:35 AM      Profile for Fidel     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Because as far as I can tell, Canada's population would actually shrink without immigration. Every developed western nation would shrivel up and die eventually without stealing the best and brightest from poverty-stricken third world capitalist nations. Canada is no different with birth rates well below replacement. It's a balancing act for the feds in applying downward pressure on wages and undermining unions and the tax base versus maintaining a steady supply of low wage workers for their friends in big business.

And instead of investing in skills training and education for Canadians born in Canada, the feds have typically stolen professionals from other countries: ie plumbers and bricklayers from Spain and Italy - machinists and bakers from the U.K. - engineers and designers from Germany and Scotland etc. Dalton McGuilty has admitted to a severe shortage of job training in Ontario, and industry in Canada has complained quite loudly about a lack of skilled workers in Canada. I've been to the U.S. on training courses that cost thousands of dollars that would have been better spent in Canada had we some kind of plan for the economy. The Liberals have had no plan whatsoever over the years. Canada is a ship without a rudder.


From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004  |  IP: Logged
Michelle
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posted 12 February 2007 11:55 AM      Profile for Michelle   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Has this been posted yet? I just got an e-mail from OPSEU about this campaign to raise the minimum wage:

http://www.amillionreasons.ca/

You can very quickly fill out an online form and it will send an e-mail to your MPP and the Premier on your behalf. Yes, it's a form letter, but hey, every bit helps, and if you don't have time to compose your own e-mail or letter, then this is a good alternative.


From: I've got a fever, and the only prescription is more cowbell. | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
unionist
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posted 12 February 2007 04:42 PM      Profile for unionist     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by Michelle:
Has this been posted yet? I just got an e-mail from OPSEU about this campaign to raise the minimum wage:

http://www.amillionreasons.ca/


Excellent! Thanks for this, Michelle. I'm pleased and proud to note that the motive for the campaign is that workers are "underpaid and undervalued", as well as the call for enforcement of Employment Standards and restoring the right to unionize.

Minimum wage is not about ending poverty. It is about fighting exploitation at the workplace and (as the ad says) giving workers a voice.


From: Vote QS! | Registered: Dec 2005  |  IP: Logged
malpeque
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posted 27 February 2007 11:29 AM      Profile for malpeque     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Stickers to show who pays $ 10 an hour. 'Living wage' campaign hits thousands of stores
From: send lawyers, guns and money | Registered: Apr 2006  |  IP: Logged
M. Spector
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posted 27 February 2007 04:19 PM      Profile for M. Spector   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Nothing better illustrates the government's ability to slip off the high road than its handling of the minimum-wage issue. The government raised the wage gradually from $6.85 an hour (where it had been frozen for a decade) to $8 but it is getting little credit for this. Social-policy groups say it needs to be at least $10 to catch up.

The Liberals were caught off guard by the NDP initiative that began last October when Cheri DiNovo introduced a private members' bill to boost the wage to $10. The NDP had campaigned in the past election on an immediate raise to $8 and argued that by the fall of 2006 it should have been $10.

Finance Minister Greg Sorbara pushed back, saying that an immediate raise would put 66,000 jobs at risk. It might be a defensible position -- certainly lobbyists for small-business groups liked it. But even as economists debated it, the NDP linked the minimum wage to the raise for MPPs that Mr. McGuinty orchestrated just before Christmas. Senior Liberals acknowledge they didn't see this coming and ruefully admit the party was killed in York South-Weston because of it.


Murray Campbell

From: One millihelen: The amount of beauty required to launch one ship. | Registered: Feb 2005  |  IP: Logged
biker
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posted 01 March 2007 07:45 AM      Profile for biker        Edit/Delete Post
Years ago, when I worked in management, I proposed to the company I worked for to reward high school students financially if they had good attendance and marks. It fell on deaf ears. We enployed only high school kids and paid them minimum wage until 1 year of service.

Now I'm opening my own small retail business in Kingston and want to pay properly. My budget includes 1 retail employee. The person will probably be a university student and work 15-20 hours per week. I would like to offer paid sick days, pay in lieu of benefits and a decent discount on in-store purchases(all things I never saw from any retail employer I worked for).

My question is what is a reasonable package to offer this person? I don't want to low ball nor do I want to offer more than I will be able to afford. Any suggestions would be helpful. Thanks.


From: Canada | Registered: Feb 2007  |  IP: Logged
Stargazer
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posted 01 March 2007 10:29 AM      Profile for Stargazer     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Biker that is a very cool think you are proposing.

I'm not sure what you should offer to start with but the chance of a salary increase every year would be a great start, and perhaps offering benifits or more money in lieu of beneifits as a choice would be great as well. What are the skills needed and what type of tasks will the employee be doing? I'd start with the job description and do a comparison for similar work and up the salary a bit. It's a great feeling when an employer really values your work and rewards in kind. Also helps productivity and loyalty to you and your company. At least it does for many people.


From: Inside every cynical person, there is a disappointed idealist. | Registered: Jun 2004  |  IP: Logged
Fidel
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posted 01 March 2007 10:45 AM      Profile for Fidel     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Pay him or her enough so that they themselves can afford to be a customer in your small business. A study of minimum wages in Minnesota suggests that for ever dollar increase in minimum wage, a $1.50 to $2.00 of income will be generated in the state economy. There is a multiplier effect with money, and a buck an hour more across the board could mean hundreds of millions of dollars more stimulating local economies and more jobs. Low wage earners tend not to spend spare income on foreign-made sports cars or another winter home on the Riviera. But studies have shown minimum wage earners tend to spend disposable income locally.
From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004  |  IP: Logged
malpeque
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posted 01 March 2007 11:35 AM      Profile for malpeque     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by Fidel:
Pay him or her enough so that they themselves can afford to be a customer in your small business. A study of minimum wages in Minnesota suggests that for ever dollar increase in minimum wage, a $1.50 to $2.00 of income will be generated in the state economy. There is a multiplier effect with money, and a buck an hour more across the board could mean hundreds of millions of dollars more stimulating local economies and more jobs. Low wage earners tend not to spend spare income on foreign-made sports cars or another winter home on the Riviera. But studies have shown minimum wage earners tend to spend disposable income locally.

Interesting info, do you have a link for that study Fidel?


From: send lawyers, guns and money | Registered: Apr 2006  |  IP: Logged
Fidel
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posted 01 March 2007 11:41 AM      Profile for Fidel     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
The Case for a Substantial Minimum Wage Hike for Minnesota 2004 pdf
From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004  |  IP: Logged
malpeque
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posted 07 March 2007 08:22 AM      Profile for malpeque     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
It's about more than just a $10 minimum wage. Corporate privilege now counts for more than the rights of the people.

[ 07 March 2007: Message edited by: malpeque ]


From: send lawyers, guns and money | Registered: Apr 2006  |  IP: Logged
Scott Piatkowski
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posted 07 March 2007 09:29 AM      Profile for Scott Piatkowski   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Labour Minister Steve Peters was quoted in my local paper saying that most minimum wage earners were students who live at home (this was in the context of repeating McGuinty's wishy-washy promise that the minimum wage will "eventually" reach $10 an hour). I'm not entirely sure whether that's true or not (or even if they have such stats), but even if it was it leaves two questions unanswered:

1) Is Peters saying that students living at home don't deserve a fair wage?
2) Hasn't he heard that his own government has allowed tuition to increase for the past two years?
3) Is he expecting people to forget about the 800,000 additional people making more than $8 but less than $10?


From: Kitchener-Waterloo | Registered: Sep 2001  |  IP: Logged
blake 3:17
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posted 07 March 2007 03:13 PM      Profile for blake 3:17     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Council to urge province to increase minimum wage

SUSAN O'NEILL
Mar. 6, 2007

City council is throwing its support behind the push to raise Ontario's minimum wage from $8 to $10 an hour.

Councillors voted 34-7 Monday to urge the premier to increase the minimum wage across the province in an effort to address poverty levels in Ontario.

Ontario's minimum wage was increased 25 cents Feb. 1 to $8 an hour.

But it's impossible to live on that salary in this city, said Ward 11 Councillor Frances Nunziata (York South-Weston).

"There's no way that anyone can live on $8 an hour," Nunziata said during a lengthy and emotional debate in council chambers.

Full story.


From: Toronto | Registered: Sep 2005  |  IP: Logged
Fidel
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posted 07 March 2007 05:40 PM      Profile for Fidel     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Well that's impressive. I guess they realize that without unions, businesses aren't going to voluntarily offer the working poor even a few table scraps. The last labour intensive job I had when I was younger I enjoyed very much. I liked all my co-workers and even the boss. They just couldn't offer seasonal workers any more money than minimum wage because themselves were subcontractors of private logging companies paid by the government for tree seedlings.
From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004  |  IP: Logged
malpeque
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posted 11 March 2007 08:31 PM      Profile for malpeque     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
DiNovo visits Sudbury to promote $10 minimum wage
From: send lawyers, guns and money | Registered: Apr 2006  |  IP: Logged
Fidel
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posted 11 March 2007 10:16 PM      Profile for Fidel     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
“All of sudden poverty is on the front pages. I nearly choked on my Corn Flakes the other day when I heard (finance minister) Greg Sorbara talk about poverty being at the top of his agenda," she said.

"He would not have said that in September when I first came to the house.”
Most businesses that pay minimum wage are not “mom and pop” operations, but large corporations like Wal-Mart, DiNovo says.

“These are the people that pay minimum wage, and guess what? The profits from those companies are not being re-invested in your community here or anybody else's community,” she says.

“The profits are being sucked down south of the border. You can hear the sound. Raising the minimum wage forces those big box stores to invest in a dignified manner in communities.”



From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004  |  IP: Logged
bruce_the_vii
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posted 12 March 2007 02:14 AM      Profile for bruce_the_vii     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
lol, sure thing. not that she'd know something like that -- or even care.

Defacto minimum wage in Calgary has gone up to $12 because of labour market shortages, another issue she doesn't care to take interest in.

[ 12 March 2007: Message edited by: bruce_the_vii ]


From: Toronto | Registered: Dec 2006  |  IP: Logged
Michelle
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posted 12 March 2007 03:25 AM      Profile for Michelle   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Most businesses that pay minimum wage are not “mom and pop” operations, but large corporations like Wal-Mart, DiNovo says.

Yeah, but it's my anecdotal (and not scientific) experience that while most businesses that pay minimum wage are not mom-and-pop operations, it is also true that most mom-and-pop operations pay minimum wage to their employees, particularly if they happen not to be family. As a minimum wage worker for four years who had lots of friends both at my job (which was a small business franchise) and at other minimum wage jobs, mom-and-pop operations had just as awful working conditions as big box stores. If not worse. And I've worked at quite a few minimum wage jobs - a bakery (small business, tiny franchise, totally crooked owner), a drug store (small business franchise, owner was decent, but paid minimum wage), a cigar stand (that guy was the most crooked guy I've ever met - mom-and-pop shop, small franchise, tiny store, and he didn't even pay me at all because I left after a week and a half), A&W, The Body Shop - I think I might be forgetting one or two.

Anyhow, they were all money-grubbing jerks who paid minimum wage. But the mom-and-pop businesses were way worse when it came to working conditions than the more "regulated" franchises like A&W and The Body Shop. I'm betting that McDonald's and Wal-Mart, while both horrid places to work, would be better than some of the small businesses I worked for.


From: I've got a fever, and the only prescription is more cowbell. | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
Fidel
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posted 12 March 2007 11:16 AM      Profile for Fidel     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by bruce_the_vii:

Defacto minimum wage in Calgary has gone up to $12 because of labour market shortages, another issue she doesn't care to take interest in.


And if the cost of living wasn't so high out there and they had some affordable housing, Alberta might not be short of workers right now. What will they do out there when all the cheap oil and gas have been carted away and profits siphoned off?.


From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004  |  IP: Logged
HeywoodFloyd
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posted 12 March 2007 02:13 PM      Profile for HeywoodFloyd     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by Fidel:
What will they do out there when all the cheap oil and gas have been carted away and profits siphoned off?.

You mean in hundreds of years? I'm sure we'll have worked something out by then.


From: Edmonton: This place sucks | Registered: Jun 2003  |  IP: Logged
Fidel
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posted 12 March 2007 03:18 PM      Profile for Fidel     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
No, I mean after the cheapest and most accessable oil and gas are siphoned off to that corporatocracy to the south of us. Meaning, when big business comes to the feds and Ralph Klone with caps in hand looking for handouts to pay for exploring deeper and more expensive to drill for oil and gas deposits.
From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004  |  IP: Logged
bruce_the_vii
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posted 12 March 2007 03:19 PM      Profile for bruce_the_vii     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Hi Michelle, interesting post. If the labour market tightened one of the first things that'd happen is these awful small shops would disappear. In fact that's a good idea.

In Calgary the labour market tightened but the construction boom made for a shortage of housing and rental accomodation. It maybe a good idea to keep the construction industry in good shape because shortages there are a bottleneck to the economy. For example in Toronto they could declare an anmesty for all the illegal Portuguese construction workers.

[ 12 March 2007: Message edited by: bruce_the_vii ]


From: Toronto | Registered: Dec 2006  |  IP: Logged
social democrat
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posted 12 March 2007 04:20 PM      Profile for social democrat        Edit/Delete Post
Michelle is right. The beauty of minimum wage legislation is that it applies to all low-income employees in all sizes of business. The reason why labour-oriented progressives campaign against WalMart is that it provides a more lucrative, organizable and potentially dues-paying target group than the mom-and-pop industries. Similarly, it is really sad to watch Canadian unions spend milions of dollars fighting to steal highly-paid workers from each other, while ignoring the lower-income folks. But the minimum wage legislation helps make up for that. That's why we need an NDP. The labour movement alone cannot help the lower-income folks.
From: Toronto | Registered: May 2005  |  IP: Logged
malpeque
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posted 13 March 2007 04:59 AM      Profile for malpeque     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Minimum wage rate causes women to live poor :NDP
From: send lawyers, guns and money | Registered: Apr 2006  |  IP: Logged
bruce_the_vii
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posted 13 March 2007 09:58 PM      Profile for bruce_the_vii     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Frankly, to tell the truth, I find there is rather a lot of support for a higher minimum wage. Mostly it follows from the fact that the market should produce a higher minimum wage in the case of tight labour supply. The expectation is it might be $12 rather than $10. This would inflate and put small awful businesses out of commission but people are ready for that. For one it's a redistribution of income within the family. I have writen a book on the street view of macro economics, jobs, and if it gets published I'm officially going to start calling myself a "jobs activist". The discussion around the minimum wage bill isn't to the point yet, that people are ready for the 1% to 2% inflation that raising minimum wage would entail.
From: Toronto | Registered: Dec 2006  |  IP: Logged
malpeque
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posted 15 March 2007 12:20 PM      Profile for malpeque     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
$10 minimum wage focus of March 16th rally to support U of T press workers
From: send lawyers, guns and money | Registered: Apr 2006  |  IP: Logged
malpeque
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posted 18 March 2007 03:45 PM      Profile for malpeque     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Thousands of London children aren't getting nutritious meals because their parents don't earn enough money, says the area's medical officer of health.
From: send lawyers, guns and money | Registered: Apr 2006  |  IP: Logged
Fidel
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posted 18 March 2007 04:35 PM      Profile for Fidel     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by bruce_the_vii:
The discussion around the minimum wage bill isn't to the point yet, that people are ready for the 1% to 2% inflation that raising minimum wage would entail.

They'll just have to weigh which they need more of against the other: executive bonuses for over-rated CEO's and upper management, or more workers to create value for the bottom line. It's all about choices. Spending on war and propping up U.S. imperialism abroad is inflationary too.

quote:
The report says over the last nine years, welfare and disability rates increased three per cent compared to a 15.5 per cent increase in food costs.

And with all the raw materials and energy we ship south 24-7, fcs ??? Dalton is as McGuilty as Mike "the knife" Harris. There should never be another Liberal or Conservative government for years to come with they way the two old line parties have mismanaged everything in this frozen Puerto Rico.

[ 18 March 2007: Message edited by: Fidel ]


From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004  |  IP: Logged
sephardic-male
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posted 19 March 2007 06:33 AM      Profile for sephardic-male   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Liberal-Tory same old story

the Ontario NDP will be getting my vote


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Olly
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posted 19 March 2007 07:02 AM      Profile for Olly     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
If the McGuinty Liberals increase the min. wage to $10 over the next few years (as they have been increasing it since they took power), would everyone support it?
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Fidel
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posted 19 March 2007 03:43 PM      Profile for Fidel     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Then the working poor shouldn't put in the effort the same as if they were earning a living wage. I think Homer Simpson explained it to Lisa that American workers don't join unions when jobs and paydays suck. They just show up for work and do a really lousy job.
From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004  |  IP: Logged
Erik Redburn
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posted 20 March 2007 06:43 PM      Profile for Erik Redburn     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
See this one's still moving along. Here's another interesting angle on it, which shows the great surge in 'jobs' thanks to FT-led growth based on FT motivated cuts to taxes and higher foreign investment. Goes to the subject in a few ways, but mostly the oft-repeated presumption that we simply 'can't afford' higher minimum wages because it would just lose us jobs elsewhere. The reverse unfortunately never seems to apply in reality land, nor does the rule seem to apply to the highest paid employees of all -CEOs. Higher wages never seems to affect Their 'market demand' much, even when their own performance is lacking. This is not a new issue.


Mel Hurtig, Pay the Rent or Feed the Kids, page 128-129:

In 1988, the year before the Free Trade Agreement came into effect, the ratio of those employed as a percentage of the population fifteen years or over stood at 62 per cent.*1 During the first ten years of the FTA the employment rate averaged only 59.5 per cent. Once again, the 2.5 per cent difference might seem small but it translates into of some 350,000 jobs a year.

In the decade before the FTA, employment in Canada increased by 2,498,600 jobs. During the first decade of the FTA, employment increased by only 1,507,500 jobs, a huge difference of almost one million jobs.

In the decade before the FTA, fulltime employment in Canada increased by 1,719,200 jobs. During the first decade of the FTA, full-time employment increased by a dismal 975,500 jobs.

During the decade before the FTA, part-time employment averaged 16 per cent of all jobs. In the first decade of the FTA, part-time employment averaged 18.3 per cent of all jobs.

In the decade before the FTA, the number of payroll employees in Canada increased by 2,037,900. During the first FTA decade, the number of payroll employees increased by a paltry 803,200.

Even these paltry statistics are overly generous to the Mulroney and Chretien governments. More than half of all jobs created in Canada during the 1990s have been in the category of “self-employed”. In the words of the OECD, “The fact that many own-account workers list themselves as self-employed because they have no other job opportunities suggests that a substantial rise in the 1990s may be in the form of ‘hidden’ unemployment.”

Self-employed workers in Canada on average earn between 50 and 65 per cent of the earnings of paid workers and usually work longer hours and have poor benefits. About half of the self employed earn less than $20,000 per year and about 25% per cent earn less than $10,000.

Many of those who are self-employed are there for two or three reasons. First, they can’t find a payroll job. Or, second, they have been let go from a payroll job. Sometimes the reason they have been let go reflects a growing trend of corporations escaping the cost of payroll benefits by increasingly hiring part-time, temporary, or contract casual labour, or by farming out parts of their operations.

Only about 10 per cent of those classified as self-employed hire employees. This also is a big change from the previous decade, when about two thirds of those newly self-employed hired others. Bruce Little notes, “From 1989 to 1996, the number of self-employed people increased by 450,000, but only ten per cent started a business. The other 90 per cent were working on their own, which suggests that the over-whelming majority chose self-employment as a last (or only) resort.*2”

For those who think that the large increases in the numbers in the numbers of the self employed can be attributed to a surge of entrepreneurial enthusiasm, the evidence is clear that this is not the case: when the labour market improves there is a rush of self-employed job-seekers back to the available paid employment.

As indicated previously, during the first decade of the FTA only 1,507,500 jobs were created. But of those, 704,300 were self-employed “jobs”, while 581,100 constituted an increase in part-time jobs. That leaves a pathetic remaining average of only 22,210 new jobs a year.

These numbers go a long ways to explaining why we have so much poverty in Canada. Is it any wonder there are so many more insecure Canadians in all parts of the country, even if they’re not now below any poverty line? And is it any wonder, as we shall see, that we have such high personal bankruptcy rates and escalating household debts?

An important measure of the state of the economy is the labour-force participation rate --- the percentage of the population fifteen years or over who are employed or who are looking for work. Warren Jestin and Adrienne Warren of the Bank of Nova Scotia estimated that had our participation rate remained constant in the mid-1990s, the unemployment rate would have been between 13 and 14 per cent, considerably higher than the official rate. Economist Arthur Donner calculated the real rate of unemployment in 1997 at 14 per cent, instead of the official rate of 9.2 per cent.

*1- StatsCan, Historical Labour Force Statistics, Cat.#71-201-XPB

*2- Globe & Mail, August 3,1998


So just remember kids, what's good for Them is good for the Whole economy but whats good for Us isn't so good -except perhaps in the future when all this maximised 'growth' will magically provide for all again, plus interest. Just don't ask for anything until that magical date arrives. Whatever we do 'the markets' must lead. Markets know best, always.


Edited for improved (hopefully) legibility.

[ 21 March 2007: Message edited by: EriKtheHalfaRed ]


From: Broke but not bent. | Registered: Feb 2004  |  IP: Logged
Fidel
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posted 21 March 2007 01:06 AM      Profile for Fidel     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
That's really pathetic, Erik. Thanks. Canada should be kicked out of the G8 for screwing up so badly with what is a treasure trove of natural wealth being siphoned off in exchange for McJobs - skyrocketing PSE tuitions - an income gap between rich and poor that is now a canyon - and wealth gap that has become a chasm in Canada. Our colonial administrators aren't fit to manage a lemonade stand.

More importantly, Canadians are being spoon-fed an ideology with a subliminal message that we should freely and openly trust big business and foreign-based multinationals more than our own democratically-elected governments. It's futile to even try a third party that's never taken a bribe or a kick-back from big giant business. Democracy is the right's most hated institution, and they're doing their worst to make sure Canadians become disillusioned with public power. Our voter turnouts were comparable with Fiji and Benin during the 1990's. They call it freedom when they themselves are free to exploit and plunder the common good.


From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004  |  IP: Logged
Michelle
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posted 21 March 2007 03:42 AM      Profile for Michelle   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by Fidel:
That's really pathetic, Erik. Thanks. Canada should be kicked out of the G8 for screwing up so badly with what is a treasure trove of natural wealth being siphoned off in exchange for McJobs - skyrocketing PSE tuitions - an income gap between rich and poor that is now a canyon - and wealth gap that has become a chasm in Canada. Our colonial administrators aren't fit to manage a lemonade stand.

Because the other G8 countries aren't bowing to neoliberal pressure?

Don't get me wrong, I'm as against it as you are, but certainly the G8 is no crusader for an end to the neoliberal system. Why on earth would they kick Canada out for doing what the rest of them also stand for?


From: I've got a fever, and the only prescription is more cowbell. | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
Lard Tunderin' Jeezus
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posted 21 March 2007 04:19 AM      Profile for Lard Tunderin' Jeezus   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
For being too stupid to exist, perhaps?

The G8 stands for neo-liberal imperialism, but it exists to impose it elsewhere - no other country has been stupid enough to join because they're willing to submit to rape and pillage.


From: ... | Registered: Aug 2001  |  IP: Logged
Fidel
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posted 21 March 2007 10:06 AM      Profile for Fidel     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by Michelle:

Because the other G8 countries aren't bowing to neoliberal pressure?

Don't get me wrong, I'm as against it as you are, but certainly the G8 is no crusader for an end to the neoliberal system. Why on earth would they kick Canada out for doing what the rest of them also stand for?


I think Canada has bowed a little deeper to the free market gods than most have. And look where we are now, dropped all the way down to 16th on the list of most competitive economies. With the ocean of raw materials and energy at our disposal for more than a century, it's like having a team of millionaire hockey players who never make the playoffs. There are richer nations than Canada whose leaders can only ponder the natural wealth this country has. Our two old line parties don't ponder, they just allow it to be shipped, pumped and piped, carted-off and trucked away south for a song.

And The Yanks have dropped from first and second place down to sixth with neo-conservatives at the helm. And their's is a robust and more difficult economy to screw up as badly as they have. It's just that whenever Canada is mentioned in the same breath as the G8 I can't help but realize how different we are from those countries. Canada is unique in a number of geographical ways in that we have a natural advantage that Germany and Japan just don't have. Canada is a low wage economy compared with those natural resource-poor nations. We should not be accepting tax cutter's mantras and who point to Scandinavia and Europe as examples for doing the same thing here. Those countries are a little more diversified than we are. Their GDP's aren't buoyed by massive energy exports to the most wasteful and energy-intensive economy in the world. And there is no proof that granting tax holidays to MNCs with no strings attached will guarantee that they sink any of it back into the country with spending on R&D, new equipment or training workers. Canada ends up near the bottom of the list in these regards.

[ 21 March 2007: Message edited by: Fidel ]


From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004  |  IP: Logged
Farmpunk
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posted 21 March 2007 04:50 PM      Profile for Farmpunk     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Do migrant workers apply, too?
From: SW Ontario | Registered: Jul 2006  |  IP: Logged
Fidel
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posted 21 March 2007 05:45 PM      Profile for Fidel     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
If they're good enough to work in Canada, they're good enough to have full citizenship rights and be protected by the laws of our land.
From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004  |  IP: Logged
Farmpunk
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posted 21 March 2007 05:56 PM      Profile for Farmpunk     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Very few of the seasonal workers I've employed and worked with want to move to Canada.

There's a good living to be made in manual labour these days. Above, and under the table.


From: SW Ontario | Registered: Jul 2006  |  IP: Logged
Fidel
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posted 21 March 2007 06:12 PM      Profile for Fidel     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by Farmpunk:
Very few of the seasonal workers I've employed and worked with want to move to Canada.

Winters are too cold up here for Latinos with families rooted in their home countries. That doesn't mean they shouldn't be protected by labour laws.

quote:
There's a good living to be made in manual labour these days. Above, and under the table.

I think low wage labour up here is helping to prop up a shitty third world capitalist setups in the countries where your labourers are coming from. Their sending remittances home to families takes pressure off corrupt governments to change things down there.

Anyway, I'm glad farmwork in Southern Ontario isn't all the employment there is in this northern Puerto Rico.


From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004  |  IP: Logged
Erik Redburn
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posted 21 March 2007 06:43 PM      Profile for Erik Redburn     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
How do you make "a good living" for under ten dollars an hour?
From: Broke but not bent. | Registered: Feb 2004  |  IP: Logged
Boom Boom
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posted 21 March 2007 06:55 PM      Profile for Boom Boom     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
If there was any justice at all, minimum wage would be $15 - $20. Ten dollars an hour for a 40 hour work week is just $400 a week, a bit over $1600 a month. That's poverty level nowadays, isn't it? Income tax shouldn't start at anything below $30,000 a year, and those at the upper income levels should be taxed to the absolute max with no exceptions. People making $30,000 or less should pay no income tax whatsoever.
From: Make the rich pay! | Registered: Dec 2004  |  IP: Logged
Michelle
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posted 21 March 2007 07:58 PM      Profile for Michelle   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
What Boom Boom said. In fact, that can be the closing comment on this (long) thread.
From: I've got a fever, and the only prescription is more cowbell. | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged

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