In the piece, minimum wage costs unskilled workers, Mr. Walker stated “Clark ran as a liberal and that is what she is proving to be.”
When the (profitable) company pays minimum wage, the workers have about $1,230 a month to live on. There is no way that worker pays their own way in our current economy. They will get an HST rebate, they are not paying any gas taxes (none of them could own a car), any health care that is received will be subsidized by those who pay higher taxes. The minimum wage earners are paying rent and putting food on the table, not much more.
Secondly, the company makes a profit because they do not have to pay a wage where the worker truly pays his own way in society. At $8 an hour, you are a wage earner, but you are a still a net cost, taxwise to other Canadians.
In return for full employment (25 people) society has accepted two things: 1) they will subsidize this worker; 2) they will subsidize the profit of the company.
In the second scenario, Clark raises the minimum wage to $10.25 an hour.
The unskilled worker who remains employed moves closer to paying his own way, they have more expendable income and pay more taxes. Society doesn’t subsidize the profits of the company (as much), it has moved some of its employees closer to a self-maintenance level and therefore it too has to move closer to self maintenance, the company is less profitable. And now society has people on unemployment and/or welfare (we will pay no matter what).
Under Campbell, we have full employment but subsidized workers and company profits.
Under Clark, you have fewer subsidized workers, lower, less subsidized, company profits, and unemployed.
Which scenario puts more responsibility on the individual to pay his or her own way? The company to operate in a real economy? Why is raising the minimum wage considered a “liberal” thing to do rather than a “conservative” policy?
Fred Danenhower
Cawston