Ask Our Northern Neighbors Whether Higher Minimum Wages Kill Jobs

To continue the debate over raising minimum wage:

A new study from Jordan Brennan and Jim Stanford for the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives examines the relationship between jobs and minimum wage increases in all ten of Canada’s provinces between 1983 and 2012. They find “almost no evidence of any connection whatsoever between higher minimum wages and employment levels in Canada.” When they did find a connection, “it is almost as likely to be positive as negative,” they write, meaning that a higher wage was just as likely to be find to boost jobs as to hurt them. They find that rather jobs are “overwhelmingly” determined by other factors, such as demand and GDP growth, and not the minimum wage.

Between January and May of this year, states that raised their minimum wages on January 1 have experienced faster employment growth than states where it didn’t go up. Washington, the state with the highest wage, has seen steady job growth above the national rate in the 15 years since it raised its wage. It was at the top of the list this year of states that saw the biggest increases in small business employment. The United States’s minimum wage hasn’t been raised in five years and has lost so much of its value to inflation over the years that it would be at $10 an hour if it had kept up. Many states have increased their own wages, however, with ten doing so this year.

source

a reply to: AlaskanDad

The US is not Canada.

If people like what Canada is doing, the door is just to the North, for most.

For you, head East.


Just because something may appear to work for another country, does not then in turn work for another.

Hello People of the North Pole,

Does higher minimum wage kill jobs?

Sincerely,

Concerned US Citizen

a reply to: macman

For many years citizens of the US of A did flock to Canada for medical treatments and cheaper prescription drugs!

Now you want them to go there for fair wages?

The United States’s minimum wage hasn’t been raised in five years and has lost so much of its value to inflation over the years that it would be at $10 an hour if it had kept up. Many states have increased their own wages, however, with ten doing so this year.

Always a push to give away more money but never a push to make the people making it accountable for that wage.

I'm all for people being able to live and get bye but as I have asked many times where do we stop giving away and constantly increasing and start forcing people to be accountable. Live within their means, realize that a job at minimum wage is a starter position, a lead into something better.

Why do so many make out like a minimum wage job is the end all, and they must get paid more for the menial service provided. How about increase your potential learn new skills, make yourself readily available for training, look for advancement within a company.

But no, never make a person learn, become more useful, provide something besides just enough to get bye, that after all would be pro-active and maybe create a progressive society, but alas too many out there still following the "AMERIKAN WAY" of creating money out of thin air and just giving it away.

I live in CANADA as you can see from my profile and we have one of the most useless entitled looking for handouts socialist group of morons up here touting the same ideals.

Always spouting off about we need to give away more money for nothing, what they never answer though is why?/ why continue every 4 or so years to just increase the wage while all the while never once increasing the use of the people your giving more money too?

I have worked construction for the majority of my life you work "HARD" , "LEARN" your wages increase!!! Sit around waiting for the next GOV. administered hand out to the lazy and uninspired continue to get paid dirt.

Honestly pretty simple when you pull your head outta your ass!!! Really it is!!

SaneThinking

144 million Americans are working.
1.6 million make minimum wage.
Thats a hair over 1 percent.
Of those 1.6 million, 484k are 16 to 19 years old meaning mostly students and part time.
That leaves 1.1 million making minimum wage. Less than 1 percent of workers.
This will not be a huge boost to the economy.
Prices will adjust to the change and these people will still be making minimum wage.

m.nationalreview.com...

a reply to: SaneThinking

Wow that was quite the hit piece, so much opinion without any facts.

Where do you think the minimum wage debate should go, what if there was no minimum wage? Would that make the world a better place? Or hey we could even replace minimum wage with training fees. Maybe the first decade you should pay your employer to work for him since he is training you?

a reply to: Hoosierdaddy71

Nice numbers to debate, interesting source btw.

1.6 million Americans earned the prevailing federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour in 2012.

I find it interesting that this figure is for those making minimum wage, rather than the number that make under the proposed minimum wage. Simply put there would be a lot more people getting a raise than the 1.6 million addressed by your source.

a reply to: AlaskanDad

What's good for people isn't good for the corporate overlords and automatons.

Get it yet? The US is an conglomerate of trans-national corporations backed by a blue army of low wage knuckle draggers and a force of even lower wage professional mercenaries.

They will build a border fence all right.... to keep people in. Get out while you can.

a reply to: AlaskanDad

Try living in Canada pay your taxes like I do then watch our downtrodden beg for more of "your" money every couple years because they decided not too keep up with the times. Be like myself and many others who held themselves accountable worked hard to earn wages, then have another push to appease those without any ambition.

See you want socialism, you can have a handout society, but then you can as well pay for the uselessness out of your own pocket and save me the sweat. Min Wage jobs serve a purpose to get you started they are not a career and should not be viewed as so anyone who does sells them selves short on a daily basis, by not even thinking to pursue more before trying to attain something they have never worked to earn.

Call it opinion all you want I call it CANADA come to Vancouver I'll show you around to all the people up here shouting from the hilltops for more money. You might just see where I'm coming from.

Don't get me wrong I do help people, but am unwilling unless that person as well is willing to help themselves.

And anyone collecting min wage is in the perfect position to help themselves just too complacent hoping that big gov one day is gonna mandate a raise they don't deserve!!

My 2 cents on what I see in my own backyard that you seem to think is gonna bring great prosperity, when all it brings is another increase when the lazy and entitled have to have that new Iphone their lack of ambition and lack of drive doesn't see them currently deserve.

But hey maybe one day they will increase it for you then again two yrs later then again and before you know it guy at McDicks can be paid the same as you or any other person who took it upon themselves to create further usefullness out of themselves and move forward.....

a reply to: AlaskanDad

Fair is now what used to be forced. What a joke.

Fair is what the market pays. Not what a Govt states as the "minimum" someone should be paid for a job.


Seeing that with the US Govt sticking it's nose where it doesn't belong again, like Health care, has never "helped" anyone except Govt, you can keep the Canadian ways. If you want them, feel free to move to them.

a reply to: AlaskanDad

Go ask a waitress if she would like to be put on minimum wage or stay with tips. I am curious about her answer.

And say we double that number to 3 million.
that's 2 percent of workers. Still don't think it will make a difference. They still make the minimum.

a reply to: SaneThinking

More opinion, yet you never addressed my questions, let me make it simpler.

How low do you feel minimum wage should be and why?

originally posted by: AlaskanDad
a reply to: SaneThinking

More opinion, yet you never addressed my questions, let me make it simpler.

How low do you feel minimum wage should be and why?

So, basically, how low of pay should the Govt force companies to offer as payment for a service.

Way to push people to do better then just the minimum.

I'm confident that those who fix prices to keep the general public living paycheck to paycheck in both countries have all these variables worked out.

Higher wages mean higher cost of goods sold. So for example a $6.99 breakfast in Canada can be bought for ,I'm guessing at five US dollars .

I've heard stories of workers here in Ontario leaving there four hundred dollar room rentals to work in Alberta due to higher wages, only to find a similar room rental in Alberta is seven to eight hundred dollars.

Higher minimum wage effects export to a great degree though, making it harder to trade within a world market. I've seen whole factories shut down due to high operating cost.

So not better, just different.

a reply to: ladylada

I can't wait to see the curve catch up if it is raised. Since their pay is raised by like $2 an hour, I can expect my pay to raise as well, because as the lowest person is raised, costs raise, prices raise and then all others involved are raised.

Short term gain with no long term insight.

originally posted by: SaneThinking
Always a push to give away more money but never a push to make the people making it accountable for that wage.

I'm all for people being able to live and get bye but as I have asked many times where do we stop giving away and constantly increasing and start forcing people to be accountable. Live within their means, realize that a job at minimum wage is a starter position, a lead into something better.

Why do so many make out like a minimum wage job is the end all, and they must get paid more for the menial service provided. How about increase your potential learn new skills, make yourself readily available for training, look for advancement within a company.

But no, never make a person learn, become more useful, provide something besides just enough to get bye, that after all would be pro-active and maybe create a progressive society, but alas too many out there still following the "AMERIKAN WAY" of creating money out of thin air and just giving it away.

I live in CANADA as you can see from my profile and we have one of the most useless entitled looking for handouts socialist group of morons up here touting the same ideals.

Always spouting off about we need to give away more money for nothing, what they never answer though is why?/ why continue every 4 or so years to just increase the wage while all the while never once increasing the use of the people your giving more money too?

I have worked construction for the majority of my life you work "HARD" , "LEARN" your wages increase!!! Sit around waiting for the next GOV. administered hand out to the lazy and uninspired continue to get paid dirt.

Honestly pretty simple when you pull your head outta your ass!!! Really it is!!

SaneThinking

Well I am glad your hard work has paid off for you. It has for me also as I am self employed in the trades. Perhaps I am not as jaded on the issue because taxation is not an issue for me being self employed....However...

I have a hard time with the logic that "hard work" will climb you out of a minimum wage job. At one time, absolutely get your foot in the door, show some ambition, and climb the ladder. Those scenario's are not nearly as commonplace these days. The corporate mechanism that is in place stifles the majority of opportunity that were enjoyed by past generations. Working your ass off only allows you to barely hang on to your minimum wage job in the first place.

I have a college educated sister who got employed at Winners as a temporary thing. She has moved up to be some sort of floor management, and there is literally no were else for her to progress to. So I guess she is contemplating "going back" to school.

My wife did, however, start at minimum answering phones, and ended up moving second to the top within ten years. She only has high school education and her hard work absolutely paid off. I just wish more had the opportunity she did.

Stay away from the corporate behemoths for employment if you can.

a reply to: macman

Care to bring any facts to this debate?

And please stay on topic "Minimum Wage", not Obama care nor role of the government, both are interesting you may wish to start your own thread on them.

a reply to: Hoosierdaddy71

Yep. Where are most minimum-wage jobs? Service industry (restaurant/retail especially) where margins are very small. Raise the minimum wage, and prices of Big Macs go up. Prices of clothes and movie tickets go up. These businesses cannot afford to absorb the costs, so YOU pay for it. It ripples across the supply chain and inflation ticks upward and guess what? The new minimum wage has the same purchasing power as the old minimum wage.

I think the minimum wage should have periodic adjustments tied to the CoL index, but that's it.

originally posted by: AlaskanDad
And please stay on topic "Minimum Wage", not Obama care nor role of the government, both are interesting you may wish to start your own thread on them.

Those would all be on topic. They are all variables that require a place at the minimum wage discussion.

Healthcare coverage, government aid and infrastructure programs, etc must all be taken into an account.

Minimum wage is a mechanism that forces societal ideals onto an economic system. Therefore, you must analyze the societal and economic variables at play.