“It’s really good for businesses, because if people get paid well, they spend the money in town. Small business should not be worried about the wages going up, they should be worried if the wages are too low because they (small business) survive on main street Prince George because people get good wages at the pulp mill, the sawmills, the hospital and so forth. So good wages are good for the economy.”

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Yeah! And prices will magically stay at their current levels ….

Other than our prices going up this will affect a lot of the young kids getting first time jobs or summer jobs. Businesses will hire summer staff to mow lawn, sweep floors, pick up garbage and by the time you add payroll and WCB to that it’s getting up there. Or the kids that get the summer babysitting jobs……same costs. This will price those kids right out of a job.

i thought it was a good idea when kids with less than 200 hours of work experience were paid less. It gave people an incentive to hire them.

Maybe they should worry about all the unpaid interns out there…….

At one time, the notion of fast-food workers being kids still in high school, most definitely still living at home, might have been accurate. In the US, current data indicates the average age of workers in fast-food joints is 29, with many workers coming off assistance before getting their job. Actually, I should say “jobs” because most have to work two jobs in order to eke out a subsistence living. I doubt the situation is any different in Canada.
It’s time to raise the minimum wage. There are studies indicating that wage inequity is one of the most corrosive elements in any economy.

Punch to the financial gut for the small business owner.

Its true the money earned is put back into the local economy and secondly take a look at the people working in business other than Mills and pulp mills. Not all are young students, with the exception of the banks most of money earned goes back into the economy. Remember Henry Ford, wondered how to increase car sales so looked at his 6ooo employees of which could not afford to buy a car gave them more money and the rest is history. Still have to move forward on this but carefully

axman: “Yeah! And prices will magically stay at their current levels ….”

Yup. All this will do is ensure everybody pays more, including minimum wage earners.

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“Sinclair says he is not concerned the increase would put B.C.’s minimum wage at the highest in the country “We aren’t worried about the rest of the country,”

Funny he would say that when he was using minimum wage levels in the rest of the country to justify the last hike. I guess it doesn’t serve his purpose this time.

Hell no. raising the minimum wage only exacerbates inflation.

If you don’t like or find you are unable to live on minimum wage, go to school and get a better paying job.

Don’t make a career of a mcjob.

Methinks Sinclair & Co feels that increasing the minimum wage simply affects the BIG Boys!
What about the Mom & Pop shops? More than anything, the M&P’s will need to increase their prices as do the ‘BIG boys’.
So how will the increase help those minimum earners? Those that really need the boost will probably see the smallest benefits and therefore the net benefits will most likely be in the -1 category.
While I don’t know what the solution can be, this proposal is certainly not helpful for those that need it.

Gives all the businesses a excuse to raise prices.. So no one wins

It is kind of hard to believe that Alberta has the lowest minimum wage in the country, while it is busting at the seams with untold riches due to the tar sands mega industrial complexes.

What about those who are already making $13.00/hr because they have worked their way up from minimum wage? Do they suddenly get $16.00/hr? Otherwise they are at the same level as someone who is inexperienced and is just entering the workforce. Wouldn’t seem fair to me.

Loki: “If you don’t like or find you are unable to live on minimum wage, go to school and get a better paying job.”

And come out of school with tens of thousands in debt due to the inability to make enough to pay for schooling.

Good ole Jim, still screaming away on how the employers are exploiting the working class.

Perhaps, Jim should run his own business of actually earning customers and providing them service, instead of living on the backs of the working class, and understand that you can not demand a 27 percent increase over night.

perhaps a incremental increase of 40 cents every 6 months, will be a bit more of a better balance.

Posted by: Krusty on March 5 2014 8:37 AM

And come out of school with tens of thousands in debt due to the inability to make enough to pay for schooling.

————-

Go to school for something useful and not for a BA (etc.) and the debt isn’t such a big deal. In fact, consider it an investment in yourself.

So an arts degree will be worth $13 an hour now? Cool.

A hike in the minimum wage will break the bank.
Queue up, the sky is falling, we will have to close our doors, we will move to Alberta and all the other whines!

They keep telling us BC is/has been doing better that the rest of the country. That story is about to change.

Posted by: Dragonmaster on March 5 2014 9:09 AM
A hike in the minimum wage will break the bank.

—————–

Raising minimum wage won’t solve any of the poverty issues we now face. All it will do is raise the poverty line.

Raising minimum wage to $13.00 will bring those people up to the poverty line, not raise the poverty line.

Like the idea of raising every 6 months, again its money that heads back into the local economy….

There is no assurance that raising the minimum wage will move people up to the poverty line. Some businesses may simply cut back the hours to pay the same total wage as at $10.25/hour. So those people who are go getters of sorts, will then find another job to increase the hours to whatever they had before, and others will not get any jobs at all.

There is absolutely no control over what will happen.

If getting people enough money to live on is the objective, it has to be done another way. This is not the way.

Only fools think this is the way to solve the poverty problems.

There’s a much bigger problem here if we have to compensate the fact that an older demographic is utilizing minimum wage jobs as a means to support themselves and/or a family. That question has to be asked as to why that is happening? Minimum wage jobs are supposed to be jobs that are a stepping stone into the workforce with the intention of hopefully going onto bigger and better things after some time in the workforce. Why is it now a wage that is supposed to support families? With all the screaming out there that we are in a experienced work force shortage, why aren’t these minimum wage people trying to get some of these better paying jobs? A change in the way employers hire, train and maintain employees is in need of change.

In all of my years, I don’t think that I have ever heard an intelligent word come out of Jim Sinclair’s mouth! He continues to amaze me with his stupidity!

I would love to see Jim actually try to run a small business! Imagine him trying to cover monthly expenses, pay a lease or a mortgage, make payroll every two weeks, cover shifts if someone calls in sick, etc. Something tells me that he would go broke rather quickly!! The man truly hasn’t got a clue!

Theoretically this could be a good thing if:

People currently on welfare discover they can work about 4 days a week and make $20,000 a year, a big step up from the current $8,000.00 they’re getting.

The government transfers a portion of the welfare savings to the businesses who just got hit with a 32% increase in labour cost. Because employers pay 4.95% CPP 2.63% EI, WCB 3%, Vac pay 4%, Stat pay 4.2% round to 19% on the $2.75 hourly wage increase making their real cost $3.27 an hour.

But it’s a win win, because someone currently sitting on their butt get’s a job, feels better about themselves, takes the job of a temporary foreign worker who is sending most of their unused cash home.

I was just at Sun Peaks and 80% of the worker’s there are foreign workers – nice kids, Australian, British, etc., but it’s ludicrous there are able bodied people on social assistance in Kamloops, and kids from half way across the world willing to work for $10.25. Maybe an increase in minimum wage could help.

Maybe the government could even take the potential welfare savings and reduce the PST so that we can afford to pay more for our burgers, timmies and starbucks with the new minimum wage price increases.

With the ever increasing usage of online shopping buying locally is quickly becoming a thing of the past. Wage earners are turning to the internet more & more to make purchases of almost anything imaginable at prices that can be 1/3 to 1/2 of what is charged locally. If my wage was at $10.25/hr & boosted to $13.00/hr I would go to where I could get the most bang for my buck.

British Columbia has one of the highest costs of living in the country and don’t forget, $10 dollars an hour in Newfoundland, you need $13 or $14 in B.C. to get the same purchasing power.”

Maybe I’m just being silly but instead of raising the minimum wage shouldn’t we be looking at a way to make it more affordable to live in B.C.

Like I said maybe I’m just being silly

I hear what you are saying Ski50, but most of the foreign workers at ski resorts are here for the lifestyle & a chance to ski in some of the best places on earth (BC powder rules :) ). Most resorts in BC have reciprocal deals with other areas of the world to swap workers who want to chase the snow. Note the proliferation of Aussie accents at PK in the last few years.

If raising the minimum wage will cause such economic distress, the opposite must create wealth and prosperity. Lower or eliminate the minimum wage and bring in foreign workers to create a competitive labour force like they did in the southern United States many years ago. It created wealth for some, and for the rest they can put some effort in to better themselves!!

Dragonmaster is right-the sky is not going to fall in at $13 dollars an hr. Many people seem to forget that not all parents have enough money to send their children to get a higher education and loans are not available to them. It would be just so easy if everyone was smart.

Why not leave the minimum wage where it is, and reduce the wages for all jobs that pay in excess of $25.00 per hour by $2.00 per hour.

This would still allow the high income workers to live high off the hog, however it would (or should) stop prices from rising, and therefore help those on lower incomes to cope.

The real problem in BC is the high paying jobs, both Government, and private, that boost the cost of living.

Of course no one in BC will make a small sacrifice to help their fellow man, certainly not Jim Sinclair, who knows full well that the minimum wage is not going to be increased to $13.00 per hour. So he is just blowing smoke.

Well one thing I did notice is that my bills – hydro,natural gas and insurance etc. did not go down over the last number of years. The thing that worries me is Jimmy P might have to sell one of his yachts to make up for the high cost of wages.

“The real problem in BC is the high paying jobs, both Government, and private, that boost the cost of living.”

I would disagree with that assessment.
Sure, high wages sound like they impact the economy, and they do.

However, it is the vast majority of service industry employees that make up the lions share of the economy.

Those exceptional wages are not the norm. The do help to drive the economy, but it is low wage jobs that most people have.

Actually Palopu that’s already happening. It’s called a graduated tax rate system. It’s 0% tax on the first $11,000 aprox, then 15% tax on the next ,$6,000.00 aprox, then 20% tax on the next $20,000. The $27.00 an hour guy is paying 30% tax on his portion above $37,000.00.

Wage and price increases have never really made much sense to me. If 4 dollars an hour in 1950 with bread costing $.20 per loaf (as an example) was good enough then, why isn’t it good enough now? As soon as a producer decided they wanted to make more money and the status quo wasn’t good enough anymore, the ball started rolling, because now they have to pay more wages to the employees so they can afford the gadget the employer wants to make more money on, now he has more wages to pay so he has lost his profit margin, therefore increases the price again, and increases wages, and on and on it goes. This does not make sense to me because EVERY cost for EVERYTHING starts and ends with wages.

Labour leaders from across B.C., keep your nose out of everyone else’s business.
Labour leaders from across B.C. are supposed to be representing union members, not every single employed person in the country.

If Jim Sinclair wants to affect or represent people not in his union(s), then maybe he should run for an elected public service position.

I hear the ndp are looking for a new leader.

Wow Loki, what a great post! Couldn’t agree more!!

I tend to agree that this isn’t the best way to get people out of poverty, it’s just too simplistic IMHO.

If you are a single parent, it doesn’t matter if you are making $10 per hour or $12 per hour, you still can’t afford $800 a month for child care. You also can’t afford to take any time off of work so that you can attend school and upgrade your skills so that you can get a higher paying job. It’s a vicious cycle.

At some point, people are going to need help to break through that cycle and I see no other way other than direct financial or social support. Whether this is done through the tax system, educational grants, subsidized daycare or other options, you need to help put people into a position where they can start to progress and it’s going to take more than two additional bucks an hour to get there.

To fund this stuff, I see no real option other than to increase taxes for people in the higher brackets. Not a popular option I know, but the money has to come from somewhere and this is likely the least punitive option for the general population.

using the nmg example, we must assume that if the minimum wage increases, then the daycare costs would also increase due to the daycare having to pay higher wages to their staff. So that day care rate would increase by about the same factor as the minimum wage increase.

(13-10.25)*(35*4)= $385 increase per month of childcare.

So where is the win?

Posted by: NMG on March 5 2014 2:30 PM

At some point, people are going to need help to break through that cycle and I see no other way other than direct financial or social support. Whether this is done through the tax system, educational grants, subsidized daycare or other options, you need to help put people into a position where they can start to progress and it’s going to take more than two additional bucks an hour to get there.

———————

I have to think that we really need to address childcare in this country. Governments need to be subsidizing them to a much larger degree then they already are.

The answer is not to just hand over money to the parents; it will be much more effective if we were to remove the roadblocks that are preventing them from reaching their potential.

Tend to agree axman. Loki, I wasn’t actually suggesting a bump in minimum wage, just a greater subsidy of daycare costs, as axman stated.

By doing that, you reduce the real costs for those folks who need it, while not requiring the daycare owner to either come up with more money to pay their workers, reduce staff or take a cut in their ROI.

Of course, the subsidy would have to come from someone and that would be higher income individuals in my example, by way of increased taxation. So yes, this would be a case of taking more from some in order to help others.

Heck, the government could even start by revisiting the maximum allowable deductions for child care expenses. I don’t know anyone with a child in full time daycare who doesn’t pay significantly more than those limits.

We could also eliminate the provincial sponsored gambling in BC to help small business owners….

Probably also worth adding that tax increases are but one source of revenue. Money could also be found from other government programs that are not performing or that no longer serve a useful purpose.

The bigger question is what are our priorities and are we serious about addressing them?

Sorry nmg if I misunderstood your post. You did however, provide a great example to work with from my perspective.

I think we have supporting arguments.

To answer your bigger question:
$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

The fundamental problem is double income several kids. Blame it on the ending of WW2, and the growth of women’s equality in an economic environment that historically was single income households with one stay at home parent prior to WW2.

Now, please don’t read into the above statement that I think women specifically should stay at home to raise the kids. That is entirely not the case. If I had a partner earning enough income, I so would stay at home with the kids. The point being, that this double income economy has skewed everything. Now the economic gluttony of the 20th century is coming home to roost.

You will pay. Pay some now or more later. Apparently we have collectively chosen to have our descends pay more later for us.

The government would save substantial money in subsidies if the low income people made a few thousand a year more.

Hell no. raising the minimum wage only exacerbates inflation.

If you don’t like or find you are unable to live on minimum wage, go to school and get a better paying job.

Don’t make a career of a mcjob.

DO you people buy your clothes and wares from foreign destinations using slave labour???