That's what happens when governments try to dictate the appropriate wage level instead of the free market.

Between the cost of hydro and this hike in wages I don't know how small businesses are staying afloat. Things are getting cra cra up her.

Well in two weeks the Consumer Price Index numbers will be released for inflation so it will be interesting to see how that will trend. Economists (not the ones the Liberal Party hired) have been saying longer term it will not be good for anyone. And in one year the min wage will go up again to $15.
Our famous coffee chain was under fire because some franchisees changed from paid breaks to unpaid breaks to help mitigate the cost increase since their prices remained the same. People (the less intelligent ones) were calling for a boycott of Tim Hortons as a result.

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A false humanity is used to impose its opposite, by people whose cruelty is equalled only by their arrogance

I think it would have been better to support policies that generate business activity and thus drive up wages. Having said that part of the problem is that minimum wage had not gone up for some time and then quite a jump all at once. It is creating all sorts of problems. Jobs that are tough that pay between 15-20 an hour are now being jettisoned by these workers for easier slightly less paying jobs

Local rest and nursing home is in somewhat of crisis. Workers calling in "sick" and no one to replace them. Health care aides in particular. Short staffing a big problem. Gov't also brought in legislation regarding minimum lead in time for call ins etc which makes it harder for small business to staff themselves. I don't know the answer aside from entry level jobs for students if you are willing to work you should get a wage you can survive on.

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They constantly try to escape from the darkness outside and within
Dreaming of systems so perfect that no one will need to be good T.S. Eliot

These (yours as well as the others) are all great insights. I thought I was attuned to Ontario just by close proximity to it, but as usual... I really didn't know all that much about it. And that's with a manager peer with dual US-Canadian citizenship who lives in Windsor working with me every day. I was wondering why he was raging about the "minimum wage increase." I thought he was talking about Michigan and the Detroit area. LOL!

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"Politics is just show business for ugly people."

That's an interesting point re: wage compression that I hadn't considered. Why would I break my back for $16 per hour when I could bake donuts for $15. I know a guy who works at Timmies, the night shift, because he gets the overnight premium and can watch Netflix on his phone all night cause there are no customers.

The other issue is going to be the ripple effect of wage compression in general. If I've worked somewhere for 4 yrs, hustled to make "supervisor" with the 0.50$/hr premium and made it all the way to $15/hr with annual increases, etc. and now the entry-level unskilled guy gets the same $$, I'm asking for more, or I'm outta there...

Lost 53,900 jobs
Gain 8,900 jobs

By my maths that's a loss of 45,000 jobs.

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How does Danny Hart sit down with balls that big?

And we have Orvil Redenbacher running our government. What do you expect?

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How does Danny Hart sit down with balls that big?

If only there was a party that still believed this guy.

He didn't believe it himself. Or at least didn't practice what he preached.

Big K got the job loss number wrong. it was 59k part time jobs gone, 9k full time jobs added.

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Swimming Workout of the Day:

Favourite Swim Sets:

2020 National Masters Champion - M50-54 - 50m Butterfly

true, but wasn't a lot of that the big military build up that eventually took down the Soviet Union?

true, but wasn't a lot of that the big military build up that eventually took down the Soviet Union?

It was but is Putin a lot better?

well, that wasn't the context of the above comment but I get what you are saying :)

A little. I think they increased defence spending 2% or so.

The majority was the result of Reagan's first tax cut.

What is the number of people that live in free democracies today but were previously in the Iron Curtain?

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It doesn't really matter what Phil is saying, the music of his voice is the appropriate soundtrack for a bicycle race. HTupolev

They tried to match the Reagan military buildup (600-ship Navy, MX missile system, cruise missiles, and the promise of a "Star Wars" space-based ICBM defenses (hahahaha!) etc.) and their economy (which was creaky to begin with) couldn't support it, which is how they got Gorbachev and so forth. The Soviet premier looked for a way to convince the US to cycle the military buildup down, but Reagan wasn't having any of it, especially at Reykjavik -- where Gorbachev tried to convince Reagan and the US to limit Star Wars to lab testing only for the next 10 years -- and it became a contributing factor (definitely not the only, or even most important, one) that led to the USSR's eventual dissolution.

It's been said of the Soviet Union (and even today's Russia) that they were a Second (or even Third) World economy, but with a First World military, and it ended up costing them. Today, China's economy is much larger than Russia's and I don't think they (Russia) could match us on a near-peer military basis, straight-up on the battlefield. Neither can China, but they're definitely taking steps to correct that imbalance. Both are looking at other ways to prevail, however, especially in terms of cyberwar and in taking out our satellites (China and North Korea are doing so, as well). Blind us, space-wise, and it becomes a much more competitive battlespace environment.

Also, I'm pretty sure the minimum wage in Russia is pretty low compared to Canada's, eh? ;-)

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"Politics is just show business for ugly people."

What is the number of people that live in free democracies today but were previously in the Iron Curtain?

There are a lot more in free democracies. The fall of the Soviet Union was largely due to economics and not the size of the U.S military.

Gorbachev wanted to move towards a more capitalistic country because of the failing economy. There was also a marked economic failing in East Germany, Czech, Poland etc., and that always leads to unrest. The Politburo in the USSR was old and it was only a matter of time until the younger generation started demanding changes, particularly when the economy was doing so poorly.

This is the most intellectually dishonest of pursuits. It boggles the mind. Can you imagine us deciding to purposely increase CO2 production and then note that the temperature went up, but then have our "experts" just say "it may be too soon to know how much the two are correlated." Sure, they might not technically know from a scientific data analysis point of view how much each data set is correlated, but they damn well would let you know -- from the get go -- what the underlying science had to say about the whole enterprise of jacking up CO2 production. On minimum wage increases we just get crickets chirping. This is shameful.

I was curious about that.

https://en.wikipedia.org/...ries_by_minimum_wage


Russia is only $0.79/hr (USD). Don't know what that is bowls of borscht.

https://www.ctvnews.ca/business/highlights-of-sweeping-new-ontario-labour-laws-including-a-minimum-wage-boost-1.3689778


You should read this. Employees have right to refuse a shift if given less than 4 days notice. Meanwhile employee can call in sick and employer legally cannot ask for doctors note. Try running a rest home or many other service businesses with this situation. If worker shift cancelled with less than 48 hours notice employer must pay 3 hours pay. If an employee is a victim of sexual or domestic violence employer must give 5 days of paid leave. Why is employer now the victim of the domestic violence as well. If the paid leave is important shouldn't gov't pay? All employees entitled to 10 days per year of personal leave with 2 of those days paid. After 5 years employee gets 3 weeks of pd vacation automatically. Allow unions to access employee contact information if they can demonstrate 20 percent of employees support their union. Workers have up to 18 months of leave after birth of child (federal legislation)


This is on top of businesses having to have anti-harassment and bullying policies in places and many other hoops they have to jump through.


When I had employees I always paid well above average wage gave yearly bonus of at least a weeks pay and treated them like family but I also was in a non-competitve service industry. The paper work and red tape to operate a small business now is burdensome.

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They constantly try to escape from the darkness outside and within
Dreaming of systems so perfect that no one will need to be good T.S. Eliot

Well, it is only one data point. Taking your analogy, one month is akin to "weather". One can't determine climate shifts from a particular temperature on a given day. Christmas time might be a poor time to determine the correct baseline.


Back to the topic, what do you think the optimal minimum wage should be? I guess that every province in Canada sets their own. Is it too low or too high in Ontario? After all, almost every country has had a minimum wage for the past century or so. If you oppose ANY minimum, do you prefer the union-driven wage levels in which binding arbitration is enforced by the government for all workers in a given sector? (Scandinavia/Switzerland/Austria/Italy and others do that with a resulting income generally higher than nominal minimum wage). Those really are the only two choices that are out there, especially for industrialized countries (unless you pine for the good ole' 19th century).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_minimum_wages_by_country#Countries

So what say you folks living in the fabulous Province of Ontario, eh? I didn't even know they were fooling around with the minimum wage there (and I live right across the river from the place and listen mostly to the two Canadian alternative rock stations, 89X and The River, hahaha!).


Well you'll not hear this kind of news on Rock Music Stations from Windsor. You'll need to tune in to CBC Radio for that. Not exactly the same but in some respects similar to your NPR!

As to the minimum wage issue. It's meant as a measure, and to appeal to those in the lower economic group of people working entry level or basic service jobs, who quite frankly if you are living in the Toronto area their is NO WAY you are going to make ends-meet on the money you are making - and that's not even going to happen at $14 or even $15/hour - but at least the government will be SEEN to be doing something to help these folks out.

Ontario right now, is somewhat similar to some areas of the U.S. - record low unemployment, still low interest rates, manufacturing numbers holding their own, and consumer confidence, at an OK level, but dive below the surface, and you'll see many who are working minimum wage jobs actually working two jobs, and struggling to get by. Many in this category are recent immigrants.

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Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog

 
Our famous coffee chain was under fire because some franchisees changed from paid breaks to unpaid breaks to help mitigate the cost increase since their prices remained the same. People (the less intelligent ones) were calling for a boycott of Tim Hortons as a result.


It's fascinating what's going on at Tim Hortons these days - the iconic coffee chain that is about as Canadian as you can get for many in this country . . but, it's owned now by a Brazilian consortium that has been ruthless with the cost-cutting over the past couple of years. Before this recent issue with the minimum wage, there was a large group of Franchise owners who were in full mutiny mode with the Brazilian owners over these relentless cost cuts.

Many still think that TH is pure Canadiana - but work is starting to leak out about what's been going on behind the scenes and that it's not even owned by Canadians anymore!

Up until quite recently Tim Hortons was such a part of the Canadian mystic and ethos that Canadian politicians would routinely hold press-conferences and announcements during elections IN, Tim Hortons parking lots - the logo and the name being such a touch-stone for all things Canadian. I'm guessing going forward, this will NOT be the case!

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Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog

Thanks for the insights, Steve! Really good scoop, and I'll start listening to CBC daily from now on.

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"Politics is just show business for ugly people."

Not disagreeing with you, but the CBC website had an on-point analysis piece, a couple of days ago, that noted that it would have been far more effective for the lower economic group, if the governments (federal and provincial) had raised the basic tax exemption rather than minimum wage. As it is, the increased minimum wage puts the burden on the (small) businesses, and actually increases tax revenue since $15 per hour, for a full time earner, translates to $30k annually. That is well over any province's minimum exemption threshold.

So the governments that are increasing the minimum wage, instead of taking a hit to improve people's lives, are actually making an attempt at a tax grab. If the governments had a true inclination to improve the situation of the low income earners, they would have bumped the basic exemptions, and they could have made that tax neutral by slightly lowering the thresholds for the higher tax brackets. This would have been neutral for business..., except that by giving people more money in their pockets, it probably would have stimulated the economy some.

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Less is more.

We've got tons and tons of data points. That was my whole point. The idea that we are "doing science" by adding another is laughable. What we are doing is just implementing a desired policy in spite of the science. That's the conclusion my analogy to CO2 emissions and AGW was supposed to conjure.


What's the minimum price for milk? Or pencils? Why don't we need a minimum for those things as well? I don't pine for the 19th century. This century is great, but that doesn't mean every single change has contributed to the improvement. To wit: Do you prefer your kids reading books a la 1850 or staring at a youtube video a la 2018?

I understand an appeal to equality. However, minimum wage law is very distortionary, and tends to negatively affect the poor most of all. The poor suffer the most from these wage variations. Raising the minimum wage decreases jobs for the poor. It also makes services the poor tend to utilize more expensive. There are better ways to address inequality IMO.

Truth in advertising: I actually don't care about inequality that much, and would prefer to just establish a safety net that doesn't marginally tax away the poor's incentive to work. I guess that would typically mean some type of guaranteed income scheme. Illegal immigration obviously throws a wrench in that.

We left "pure free market " when ... .well, we never had it, and we decided that we never really wanted it, though a radically modified version is very popular. Check out average hourly wages for the lowest paid workers in the 19th century. It is indisputable that minimum wages (and the rise of unions) improved the lives of these workers. Such distortionary laws led to a significant expansion of the middle-class. You can certainly posit a high minimum wage in which the possible loss of jobs exceeds the improved wages earned by the poor, but zero isn't that level. I tend to support varying minimum wage levels, based on costs of living in different areas.


Global trade threw a much bigger wrench in that. Much poorer countries with lower wages have pressured the lowest wage earners in many sectors.

Letting a pseudo-"free" market find a bottom is unlikely to work (after all, it never has). If you want to increase work incentives (necessary since we are at "full employment") raising wages for the lowest paid certainly is one way to do it, and much less intrusive than the present safety net or plans for "a basic guaranteed income". One could concurrently lower the safety net, but increasing poverty isn't probably a sustainable policy. Too great a level of inequality over time is inherently unstable, since the "losers" vastly outnumber the "winners", and vote for often radical changes in the status quo.

(robots will make it even more

Here in BC we followed suit with plans to raise the wage from $11 to $15 in a few years. That's a big jump to make.

I occasionally hire tempt construction labourers who currently make $15/hr. It will be interesting to see how much their rate will increase when they could be making that as a barista or flipping burgers. I'm sure customers won't mind me charging an unskilled broom pusher out at nearly $30/hr just to cover their costs...

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Long Chile was a silly place.

You make a good point. Do I take the easy (mentally and/or physically) job paying $15 hourly or the harder (likewise) one paying the same, ceteris paribus?

Not all (or even most) workers will be able to enjoy this sort of pleasant conundrum, of course. But I've read other studies that indicate some workers will take an easier job even if it pays a little less than a job that may be a bit more taxing but which also pays a bit more. They assess the trade-offs, typically, and find a way to make the lower-paying job work, if it means they won't have to labor as hard in that job as they would in the higher-paying (not greatly higher-paying, though) job. Typically, they give rationales like "Quality of work life" (or simply "Quality of life"), "Better work-life balance" and so forth to justify taking the lower-paying job.

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"Politics is just show business for ugly people."

Well, in fairness, being a construction labourer is a terrible job. Unless you're a young buck gaining experience before an apprenticeship, if you've been a labourer for more then a couple years something has most likely gone terribly, terribly wrong in your life. If I were going to struggle in a job that doesn't quite make ends meet, I'd probably opt for something more akin to Burger flipper or coffee slinger, or at least something that doesn't destroy your body like construction work does. I doubt that extra $1.5/hr the labourer is making will help him afford back surgery ;-).

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Long Chile was a silly place.

I've never understood this argument about the "pure free market". It's analogous to arguing that we've never had a world completely devoid of human suffering so why try to eliminate slavery? (for instance). First, I never mentioned anything about a "pure free market". What I did mention was that minimum wage distorted the market. Then I told you what the distortions were -- less jobs and higher service prices for services the poorest tend to use. If you don't want to address those points, then fine, but please, no more "pure free market" talk. It's irrelevant.

I don't want to increase work incentives beyond what they already are. That's not what I said. What I said is that I don't want marginal tax rates on labor to discourage work


I don't think this is necessarily true. I think high levels of human suffering are inherently unstable. Often those two things have gone hand in hand, but they don't have to.