THAT is a good question. To start with I'm against a "Carte Blanche" minimum wage and secondly I don't think it's a matter that politicians should be sticking their nose into. I don't believe a single minimum wage fits all situations. How are the likes of Christy Clark helping J.L.M. the Widget maker's employees when there is no demand for widgets or her preset minimum wage makes construction too expensive to attract custumers. If you want to set minimum wage to cover the expenses of providing for home and family, $8 an hour definitely won't do, nor will $12 an hour and I'm guessing even at $16 would be a struggle. I'm sure not one for making light of the problem, to the contrary I think the problem has gotten out of control on many fronts. Where to begin? Every consumer sitting down and making a list of what's essential, what's necessary, what's desired and what is frivious and priortising a list accordingly? But then that creates one more problem. Big Mac, A&W, Wendy and Burger King would close their doors within a week. On the positive side I see most employers as being fair minded people, if a little misguided. I can only speak for myself and putting myself into the unenviable position of working at Minimum wage for Big Mac, I would start by concentrating on improving service and looking at innovative ways of helping him improve his business, but who knows if that would work. Maybe it's a good time to get advice from Bill Gates or Warren Buffet. I'd trust either one of those two over Christy Clark. I don't know if anyone else has noticed that Christy is embarking in the footsteps of Gordon Campbell- five minutes after he was made premier he cut our Provincial income tax by 25% and everyone was ecstatic. "Fool me once- shame on you, fool me twice shame on me". LOL
So the poor schmuck on the street, or in his apartmnt or whatever, who is down and out, and can only
find a minimum wage job, the real situation of many in our country, who are living at the bottom
of the wage scale, and probably working two jobs to make ends meet, you didn't say what you would
'for' them at all.
There are many people who are good workers, do teir jobs and go home, they don't have to help the
owners make their businesses better, they just need to do their 8 hrs (nope probably only about 4
hours,) because the employer makes sure they don't work them enough hours where they would have to
give them any benefits, that would be out of the question, so they hire more workers, and work them
less hours, to escape that responsibility.
How would you help those people, if government does 'not'.
Do you feel that if they don't 'shine' in the eyes of their bosses, and go above and beyond the
normal, they don't deserve a minimum wage status, only what the employer 'feels' like paying them?
Boy, would the employers love to go back to those days.