Why is the minimum wage so low?

www.cbc.ca...

www.cwp-csp.ca...

The current minimum wage in Ontario is $10.25 and was scheduled to be increased in 2010 as part of the provincial poverty strategy, but this was put on hold.  Meanwhile, with an increase in low wage work it was estimated that 40% of individuals above the age of 25 are earning a minimum wage.  The problem:  a full-time minimum wage worker is 21% below the poverty line.

Apparently the idea of raising our minimum wages is being discussed. I've read elsewhere, that they're supposed to be raised by 25 cents next year, but that's just not enough.

We don't have food stamp programs, and our household utilities, especially winter heating, are very expensive. House and apartment rentals are expensive. Try and find a rental for less than a full months pay in any of major cities in Canada, then add utilities and food....
No landlord wants half a dozen people living in an apartment just to be able to afford the rent.

If they want to keep raising the cost of living, they need to raise the wages as well

kijijiblog.ca...
^average apartment rental prices are shown
Over $1000 for one bdrm in Toronto.

reply to post by Hoosierdaddy71


Alright, let's go with that. Replace simple labour with machines, it's coming soon anyways. A massive segment of the population is now out of work and has no options. What happens then? Guess what: you get a bunch of hungry people who are dissatisfied with the socioeconomic system together, and I guarantee you blood is going to be spilled.

The solution? Force socioeconomic adaptation to increasing automation and the simple fact that there are more people than jobs. At this point, the basic necessities of life should be flat-out provided to everyone by law. Food, shelter, medicine, things someone living in a civilized country should not have to work for.

reply to post by Akragon

Economics, or rather, greed. It's supply and demand. And as long as there are workers willing to work for low pay, there will be low pay. Hence the need to stop the flow of illegal immigrants flooding our country and other countries. When a person doesn't pay taxes, doesn't care about taking every issue to the Emergency Room to end up being paid for by other people, get free education, driver's licenses, and sooooo many other freebies that cost the taxpayer.... why wouldn't they head over the border? Corporations LOVE cheap labor, to the point where they are willing to ship jobs overseas! But instead, they get cheap labor here. Minimum wage is the lowest denominator in the equation. Nature abhors a vacuum, and jobs will be filled at the lowest possible wage. People are willing to accept what they can't live on? Don't accept it. With no employees, the wage will rise. That's economic law. (or the job will disappear!)

justreleased

Why is the minimum wage so low?

For example....

Tommy will mow your lawn for $7.50 then Billy comes along who says he will mow your lawn and wash your car for $6.00.

Who do you hire?

neither, I buy some gas, put it in the lawnmower and mow the lawn myself.
______________________________

You guys can't moan about the wage and not include keeping prices low. You raise the wage, prices go up. Your money is once again worth jack and the cycle continues.

Im just going to get that last edit in. some of that point doesn't need to be there.

reply to post by Akragon



Why is it so low?
It's so that the poorest in society are struggling, living in fear and distress.

A living wage would be about £15ph or $15ph and many charities call for a living wage, not a minimum wage.
It has been debated recently and continues to be called for, whether it happens or whether it's possible is another matter.

reply to post by Akragon


I use to work for 5.50 an hour. Minimum wage allow jobs to low skill workers and young teenagers. If u raise the minimum wage then u would end those jobs. Then now the low skill workers will be competing with a more skilled class. Thus, there will be more people on unemployment. Typically the ones that are inexperience. Plus, this would eliminate most new and small business that don't have the capital like the big businesses.

reply to post by Akragon


The minimum wage is low, as it is the MINIMUM. Rant all you want at me, but the minimum wage job is not meant to be a career, it is usually a "starter" job...meant to gain you skills in the workplace. All these comparisons of how it is unfair that the CEO of a company makes X, while the guy flipping burgers or pushing carts makes Y. Apples and oranges, the skills it takes to do a minimum wage job are not comparable to some high level exec...plain and simple. The other problem is this...if the min. wage were raised to say 15.00, guess what happens...prices on goods go up...life is no better, maybe worse as the companies that employ min. wage folks might...cut jobs. Quit ranting about how unfair and how bad your situation is...and do something about it! I started out making 3.85 an hour, put myself through school, and continued to work, and work, and work...don't settle...change.

The only way minimum wage can increase is with a nation wide strike in every minimum wage sector I have been waiting for this to happen in England but sadly it never has, people just seem to accept longer hours, higher tax's and less pay rises.

Its precious little to do with keeping wages low so that prices don't have to rise.

Its simply to keep people borrowing and the banks earning. The government and corporations benefit a number of ways by enforcing debt by low wages. People have to sell their assets cheaply so the rich can hoover them up. People have to borrow to live so the banks are happy and with people so wrapped up in worrying about their debt ridden worlds, they don't have time for civil protest to point the finger at the real culprits robbing them blind by low wages. So it keeps the status quo.

Its only small firms that have to compete with the big boys who struggle and need to keep wages as low as possible. The big boys keep wages to a minimum for their profits. People with kiddies have to get all the necessities their families need so hence the credit card and debt.

Akragon
reply to post by QUANTUMGR4V17Y

 

Im gonna have to disagree with that...

IF a bread company is making more money from their product because more people can afford to buy it... they turn a good profit, and theres no reason to increase the cost of their product.

and besides that.. IF bread is say 2$ an loaf, and it increases to $4... its still affordable on a $15hr wage...

IF said person makes $7 an hour, bread isn't affordable anyways.... which is just sad

If raising the minimum wage worked, why not raise it to $100/hr? You CLEARLY do not understand basic economics. If your overhead goes up, then that bread company WILL raise the cost of their product. Your idea is flawed and not rational at all. Im glad you aren't in control of making decisions. Especially when it concerns this argument.

Australia has the highest "minimum" wage in the world. It also has one of the highest costs of living as well. So there goes your theory. But I want to talk a bit more about the "minimum" wage... Minimum wage; meaning the LEAST amount an employer can pay you. It is NOT the "average" wage though. If we looked at the AVERAGE wage of a country, we would see that, though the US has a relatively "low" MINIMUM wage, the US AVERAGE WAGE is the highest in the world.

en.wikipedia.org...

How can a country with a lower MINIMUM wage have a higher AVERAGE wage than a country like Australia? Because the US Does NOT depend on minimum wage. There is a lot of jobs in the US where there is what we call in finances "upward mobility". A very TINY percent of Americans actually depend on minimum wage...

However, 70% of US jobs come from cash strapped SMALL BUSINESSES. Not huge multi-national companies that probably could afford to pay their employees more. Raising the minimum wage nationally would absolutely be detrimental to the small business of this country. If a small business cannot afford to pay you, they will cut your hours if not straight up let you go. What happens then? Employment goes down, and the economy is in the turd bin. Not smart economics at all.

reply to post by justreleased



actually, you place an ad saying you need you lawn mowed, but only by someone with 5 years of experience and a degree in landscaping, willing to do the job for $5.

when you cant find that, you complain to the gov that you cant find a qualified american worker and need an h1-b1 visa. then you hire apu (who doesnt meet the requirements you posted to exclude americans) to do your lawn for $4 an hour.

apu, who cant rent an apt at your wages, then rents from the apt over your garage, so you get half your wages back.

not a bad scam if you ask me.

New York Times, January 2013: “Efforts to raise the minimum invariably run into arguments that employers, especially small businesses, cannot afford to pay a higher wage. But the evidence shows that most low-wage employees work for large companies, which have largely recovered from the recession and have reinstituted generous pay packages for executives.”

Paul Krugman, Princeton University, February 2013 the great preponderance of the evidence from these natural experiments points to little if any negative effect of minimum wage increases on employment.”


Bloomberg News, April 2012: "[A] wave of new economic research is disproving those arguments about job losses and youth employment

There are significant savings that result from paying higher wages – including reduced employee turnover and increased productivity – and these savings help offset the cost to employers of a minimum wage increase.

Costco CEO Craig Jelinek, March 2013: “We pay a starting hourly wage of $11.50 in all states where we do business, and we are still able to keep our overhead costs low. An important reason for the success of Costco’s business model is the attraction and retention of great employees. Instead of minimizing wages, we know it's a lot more profitable in the long term to minimize employee turnover and maximize employee productivity, commitment and loyalty. We support efforts to increase the federal minimum wage."

as always, the demand model of economics works the best. how do you increase demand? increase pay at the bottom. then people have more money to buy useless junk, which increases demand, which increases profits.

Akragon
This isn't much of a rant but perhaps someone can explain this to me...

Why is the minimum wage so low?

In Ontario where I live its $10.25... and while that isn't as bad as other places in the world its still hard to live off of such a meager wage...

Now with a quick google search one would find the minimum wage in the US is $7.25... I would assume that is almost impossible to live off of but im sure people make it work... Congrats to those that do, that is talented budgeting

Personally... I think the minimum wage should be $15.00 an hour across the board... It would stimulate the economies of the world because people would have the money to buy more things and live comfortably...

I can and have lived off $15 an hour... quite comfortably

I would say most people know where the money in every company goes... likely to the CEO of the company or share holders... but theres so many of these higher ups making well over 5-6 figures while the people that actually run the business struggle to make ends meet with $7-8 dollar wages...

Its sad that the only explanation for this pathetic wage of living is greed from the higher ups...

$15.00 an hour is a fair wage... its not great but its definitely workable...

with that people would have more money to spend... people would be happier, and a good portion of it would be returned to the economy of the country...

so I say $15 across the board for the minimum wage.... its only fair for people that bust their asses trying to earn a living

Logic? Stop using it.....................

It will only make you a target.

The difference between minimum wage and a livable wage with the same effective operating budget is the difference of whether or not you're dependent on government assistance (which may fail to provide in some cases) and whether or not your other costs are socialized. More or less when companies pay minimum wage, they're socializing the costs of doing business because it's understood you're not going to get by without public aid or being dependent on other people to make ends meet. It also incurs a loss of personal freedom as you always have to check in with somebody or go by somebody's arbitrary rules to get that which is needed in order to make ends meet. Minimum wage as it exists without being pegged to inflation and the cost of living should be obvious for what it is, and that is corporate welfare.

Also education isn't the great path out these days either. It's been over-hyped and should be considered burnt out by now. There are many people out there with degrees (sometimes fairly advanced) trapped doing minimum wage work because they don't have "experience" nor meet other arbitrary qualifications which locks them out of their field of choice. Age discrimination is also one of those rampant hidden problems you will run into if you get your degree later in life. Even if that's not legal, there's a litany of excuses which makes it nearly impossible to prove. Lets just say that after being unemployed, working minimum wage happens as a last resort and is harder to break out of than most people realize. You end up in a rut unless you know people, so if you're not much of a socializer it's all too easy to get trapped.

If you raise the minimum wage, then prices will go up. It's that simple.

The economy does not equal McDonald. There are many small businesses that will be killed with a minimum wage of 15/hr if they don't raise the prices of their goods or services.

And what about those people that went to college and are earning 15/hr? It's not fair when a high school drop out earns the same as a person who finished college.

If you raise the wage for everyone then the prices would raise the same and there would be no difference in the standard of living.

Raising the minimum to 12/hr and forcing businesses to keep the prices the same would destroy small businesses across the US.

Akragon
This isn't much of a rant but perhaps someone can explain this to me...

Why is the minimum wage so low?

In Ontario where I live its $10.25... and while that isn't as bad as other places in the world its still hard to live off of such a meager wage...

Now with a quick google search one would find the minimum wage in the US is $7.25... I would assume that is almost impossible to live off of but im sure people make it work... Congrats to those that do, that is talented budgeting

Since when is every single job supposed to pay enough to live off of?

Do you know how much of the working population actually earns minimum wage? 1%.

Riposte

Akragon
This isn't much of a rant but perhaps someone can explain this to me...

Why is the minimum wage so low?

In Ontario where I live its $10.25... and while that isn't as bad as other places in the world its still hard to live off of such a meager wage...

Now with a quick google search one would find the minimum wage in the US is $7.25... I would assume that is almost impossible to live off of but im sure people make it work... Congrats to those that do, that is talented budgeting

Since when is every single job supposed to pay enough to live off of?

Do you know how much of the working population actually earns minimum wage? 1%.

Do you happen to know the percentage of population actually earn a living wage?

Why is minimum wage so low?

Well the answer is in the name, keyword MINIMUM!

If you dislike being paid minimum wage and find it tough to live with such a wage, might I suggest learning a trade or continuing your education so you can make a better wage?

Minimum wage jobs are generally jobs that require no skill. Which means anyone can do it.

Rest assured however, if you dislike your minimum wage job so much, you can always quit. I have no doubt there are people out there who would be more than happy to make minimum wage, cause even that is better than nothing.

If there's a minimum wage, shouldn't there be a maximum wage? When is enough enough?
rt.com...

85 > 3.5 BILLION.....

opethPA
Let's look at America where basically people want to double the salary of minimum wage workers..All for it but does everyone also get a substantial increase?

This.

I was thinking about replying with the same thing. If I currently did make $15/hr, and the minimum wage is increased, I suddenly become a minimum wage earner.

I can assure you that my company will not increase my pay to $30/hr to compensate for the rising prices of goods and services that is sure to accompany a minimum wage hike.