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Originally Posted by vid
To add to your excellent post
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Thank You.
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Even a $15 minimum wage in Toronto doesn't get you very far there.
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To this point.
An entry level, one bedroom apartment in Toronto, right now, will set you back $1,550 per month + hydro + parking.
Typically, that would read as $1,670 in spring/fall and a bit more in winter and summer based on window a/c or space heaters adding to costs.
A minimum wage of $15 per hour, for a full time worker, getting 37.5 paid hours per week (most don't get a full hour of paid lunch), works out to $2,250 based on 2 pay cheques for 2 weeks each.
Except, that's before tax.
Very rough math, is that the basic exemptions are close to 13k, so you pay roughly 20% income tax on about $17k, you also lose the health premium and some payroll tax; you'll end up at around 25k net out.
That leaves you $1,923 - $1,670; so you have $253 to survive on each month.
The TTC transit pass is $147 a month.
That leaves you $145 to cover grocery, socks/underwear, clothes, furniture, phone, internet, etc. per month.
Good luck w/that!
I count myself fortunate not to have to make that math work.
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The minimum wage is not the solution to everything, I think $15cdn is probably about right for middle-Ontario for daytime, weekday work.
Adding tax relief targeted at lower income workers, better supports for those w/kids, and truly comprehensive healthcare could make such an existence manageable, if tight.
But in areas like Toronto or anywhere in Ontario where core cost-of-living is more than 20% above provincial norms, I think a higher minimum wage is going to be in order.
It can't be completely disproportionate to the rest of the province, but something extra will be needed.
Perhaps an extra 15%, so that minimum in Toronto would be $17.25 per hour. To make that work, you still need the above discussed tax relief, expanded health care and other supports.
Oregon has done this, have a 3-tiered minimum wage, low-cost rural areas, suburban areas around Portland, and Portland proper.
When fully phased in, on July 1, 2022 min. wage will be $12.50USD $13.50USD and $14.75 USD respectively.
Those numbers in $CDN by the way, at current exchange are:
$16.38 per hour, $17.69 per hour, and $19.32 per hour.
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Something I'd like to see considered here is to borrow from the Australian model and have a premium on the minimum wage for overnight work.
They also have a premium for weekends.
I don't think business could withstand all that changing all at once, but a gradual move where we introduce an urban premium in 2021, then an overnight premium in 2023 would make good sense to me.
Canadians have been too passive in settling for some of the lowest employment standards in the developed world w/low amounts of paid vacation, few statutory holidays, incomplete health coverage and starting wages that are too low.
We don't need to be northern Europe (though why not, as long as I don't have to learn to speak Norwegian)
But we really must to better by people who just getting by.
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Even if Costco raised their staff salaries more than that (mine went up $5.50 in October plus an expansion in benefits and the rest of the Liberal's bill which includes more sick days and vacation pay, etc., on top of that and we have yet to raise costs for anything, with no plans to do so in the near future, because our business is well-run and took this increase into account a year ago when the bill was first announced) so there has to be something else at play here. Many of the staples I buy at the grocery store seem to have gone down slightly in price if we want to play the anecdote game, but I shop at Western Canadian stores supplied out of Vancouver, Calgary and Winnipeg, so the Asian-origin products are cheaper here.
But the owner of the business is the employee, which could be part of it?
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