raise minumim wage already!

[Senior]

isn't it time these people get a raise? I get a raise at least once a year. yet the people who need it the most haven't got a raise in over 6 years. with Vancouver's housing market being what it is it's no surprise we have so many homeless people on our streets.

[esoter1c]

I thought it was $10 !?

I make $20hr & it's sweet fuck all at the end of the day.

Gov't should get rid of income tax & just have higher gst etc.

That way drug dealers would have to put back in to the system.

[dabbler]

^^ what do you do?

[Senior]

Originally Posted by esoter1c

I thought it was $10 !?

I make $20hr & it's sweet fuck all at the end of the day.

Gov't should get rid of income tax & just have higher gst etc.

That way drug dealers would have to put back in to the system.

sales tax is disproportionately unfair to people with lower incomes. so I'd say we should actually just legalize and tax drugs to deal with that problem.

I thought the same thing years ago, until someone mentioned to me that bringing up minimum wage would also bring up the cost of living. It's a tricky thing to play with.

What I do know is that in Australia the minimum wage was something like $5 hr a few years ago, but the average paying job was $10 an hour. In fact a lot of jobs paid more than that compared to the same jobs only paying minimum wage here in Canada. For example a bartender would make $8 an hour here... and I made $14.75 hr on weekdays and $17.25 hr on weekends.

I am no economic genius, but I would think companies would naturally pay more per hr to attract good employees.

[Senior]

Originally Posted by R Wellbelove

I thought the same thing years ago, until someone mentioned to me that bringing up minimum wage would also bring up the cost of living. It's a tricky thing to play with.

What I do know is that in Australia the minimum wage was something like $5 hr a few years ago, but the average paying job was $10 an hour. In fact a lot of jobs paid more than that compared to the same jobs only paying minimum wage here in Canada. For example a bartender would make $8 an hour here... and I made $14.75 hr on weekdays and $17.25 hr on weekends.

I am no economic genius, but I would think companies would naturally pay more per hr to attract good employees.

basically that's the point of this. the thing is though that minimum wage is far from the only thing that affects the cost of living. in fact the cost of living has risen dramatically in the last 6 years. so yes raising minimum wage will increase the cost of living but not by much and certainly not enough to negate the benefit to poor people.

[Disco_Whore]

While it may be nice to think that companies want to pay their employees more, you need to remember that not all companies and small businesses are actually like that.

A few years ago I was working for RCR (Resorts of the Canadian Rockies, they run a bunch of ski hills) in Alberta and was making somewhere between $5 and $6 an hour, it was ridiculous. And no I wasn't a lifty (who actually made more than I did) I was working in the daycare taking care of infants to kids of age 6! This was no small company either, it had recently been bought out so it could afford to pay its employees well...but did it? No.

[starbright]

sign the petition

[Disco_Whore]

^Done. Thanks for the link!

[esoter1c]

Originally Posted by dabbler

^^ what do you do?

[cubed]

HOW ABOUT NO YOU CRAZY DUTCH BASTARD!o

[Senior]

Originally Posted by esoter1c

what year?

[esoter1c]

Originally Posted by Senior

what year?

1st but they're already lettin' me weld etc...

Foremans a family friend and a few other guys so I do fuck all really.

It's a pretty easy job to start with.

Crane does everything. :D

[Courtney]

I know fuck...
I'm in total support of tipping and I think it's awesome that we do because it gives poor people like me an opportunity to earn more than 8 bux but...
I think it should be the responsibility of the government to be paying more..the money shouldn't have to be coming out of other poor people's pockets
because with me experience the poorest people are the ones who tip

[cubed]

^^I was part of the SWA (Steel Workers of America) for a few years operating a bridge crane, it's definitely an easy gig.

[Courtney]

like in australia, servers get paid like 20 bux an hr

[Senior]

Originally Posted by esoter1c

1st but they're already lettin' me weld etc...

Foremans a family friend and a few other guys so I do fuck all really.

It's a pretty easy job to start with.

Crane does everything. :D

wow, good for you. hope you have good rain gear!

[esoter1c]

Originally Posted by Senior

wow, good for you. hope you have good rain gear!

All Viking gear, love it.

[esoter1c]

Originally Posted by cubed

^^I was part of the SWA (Steel Workers of America) for a few years operating a bridge crane, it's definitely an easy gig.

We got 3 hammerheads on site, I couldn't do it, stuck in a lil' box all day.

Def good $ though.

[cubed]

and look where the Australian dollar is sitting compared to ours Courtney...

1 CAD = 1.16166 AUD

Raising the minimum wage isn't going to solve the problems for lower income families. A more viable solution would be creating more tax breaks for these people.

When you start messing with the sliding scale that is the minimum wage all you're really doing is sweeping the dirt under the mat as opposed to actually cleaning up and fixing the problem.

A quick fix like that isn't going to solve the long term issues the poor are facing.

[cubed]

Originally Posted by esoter1c

We got 3 hammerheads on site, I couldn't do it, stuck in a lil' box all day.

Def good $ though.

I worked in a plant, so I didn't have to sit up in a box, I walked around with a remote box filling and loading plate orders.

[Senior]

it's not being suggested as a cure all solution for the poor. it's being put forward as a small step in the right direction. so while were at it lets bring on the tax breaks for the poor but more importantly than either we need to start building low and mid income housing! every project I work on is for luxury condos... seriously no one has any incentive or reason to build mid or low priced housing right now. I can't say I blame the developers either because if you did you'd just be throwing away profit.

Originally Posted by cubed

and look where the Australian dollar is sitting compared to ours Courtney...

1 CAD = 1.16166 AUD

Raising the minimum wage isn't going to solve the problems for lower income families. A more viable solution would be creating more tax breaks for these people.

When you start messing with the sliding scale that is the minimum wage all you're really doing is sweeping the dirt under the mat as opposed to actually cleaning up and fixing the problem.

A quick fix like that isn't going to solve the long term issues the poor are facing.

[rawb]

10 BUCKS? REALLY?

HOW DID WE COME UP WITH A FIGURE LIKE THAT? IT SEEMS LIKE MINIMUM WAGE GOES UP IN SMALLER INCREMENTS THAN 25% USUALLY. WE ALREADY ARE TIED WITH THE HIGHEST MINIMUM WAGE BETWEEN ALL THE PROVINCES, AND WERE GOING TO RAISE IT $2 BUCKS? o

[cubed]

Not everyone can live in LA or NY, that's why there's places like Omaha.

Likewise, not everyone can live in Vancouver or Toronto, that's why there's places like Moosejaw.

[diva]

Originally Posted by esoter1c

I thought it was $10 !?

I make $20hr & it's sweet fuck all at the end of the day.

Gov't should get rid of income tax & just have higher gst etc.

That way drug dealers would have to put back in to the system.

Right. Let's get rid of the very thing (income tax) that pays for our health care and education systems, and provides various social safety nets for the poor. That makes so much sense. Let's get rid of income tax, something that everyone who works in this country HAS to pay and instead, let's raise a tax that only applies whenever someone buys something. Hrm. So I worked my ass off and made 7k before taxes last month, and paid a lot of that in taxes (maybe 3k). I didn't really buy anything. Since i'm too cheap to do any shopping in Canada, I probably spent about $50 on GST payment. Getting rid of income tax would be amazing, but it doesn't make any sense and would defeat the whole point of having extra money kicking around to help the poor.

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I don't agree with increasing the minimum wage. Where are companies going to find the money to give their employees a 20something percent raise? They're going to pass the extra costs of doing business onto the consumer. So the very people who are getting those raises are going to have to spend more money on buying stuff.

Vancouver's an expensive city. Everyone knows this. People who can't afford to live here, don't have to live here.

Maybe i'm just weird, but who actually makes minimum wage in this city? This is a serious question. Most immigrants have to prove that they have a lot of money before being allowed to immigrate to this country, so it's definitely not immigrants. Maybe new refugees, but they make up a small population of our immigrant population.

Which part of our population is actually working for minimum wage? I'm being serious. Someone answer my question. Because other than friends who are servers and make most of their money from tips, I don't know a single person who works for minimum wage. And if someone over the age of 18 is working for minimum wage, I want to know why.

I'm coming off as really cold hearted in this thread, but i'm not. I believe that poor people should receive subsidized housing, subsidized education programs so they can learn skills that they can eventually get decent jobs with, and subsidized daycare, so they can go to work without having to worry about their children during the day. People need to be given a chance to get better educations so they can obtain higher paying jobs. Increasing minimum wage isn't going to do that. I'd rather pay more income tax so that we can improve our social programs.

Poor people don't need to get paid more money to work shit jobs. We need to provide them with non-monetary support that will enable them to obtain employable skills.

isn't it time these people get a raise? I get a raise at least once a year. yet the people who need it the most haven't got a raise in over 6 years.

Don't be ridiculous. Most people who start off at a job making minimum wage do not stay at that wage for six years. If they do, they're retarded. Give me one example of a minimum wage job where an employee would not receive a raise in six years.