The Manitoba Provincial Politics Discussion

[djforsberg]

Originally Posted by thebasketballgeek

Avg Rent is actually $1317 a month as of Feb 2022 (page 51) and the wage required to have rent just be 30% of your income is about $27 an hour. I wonder what the median salary is in Winnipeg and how it compares to other cities in that regard.

Anyways only 3% of all dwelling units in the city would be considered affordable for someone making minimum wage. Increasing the wage is a necessity, but it has to be in conjunction with heavy investment into public housing.

Absolutely. This whole profiting off the shortage of housing shit needs to be nipped in the bud and this would be one of the most effective ways to do it.

[esquire]

It's interesting that the construction of a huge-for-Winnipeg number of MURB units (both rental and condo) over the last 10 years doesn't seem to be having much of an impact in terms of cooling off rents, given that it has seemingly cooled off the actual value of those units... I've read real estate people making comments to that effect in various Free Press articles.

[dmacc]

Originally Posted by djforsberg

Well, obviously it would be based on a combination of factors, such as some sort of blend of what a 1-bedroom for an individual, 2-bedroom for a couple, or a 3 to 4-bedroom for a family would cost. All three of these scenarios should generally see the occupants not spending more than 30% of their combined income on housing costs.

Why is a 1 bedroom not suitable for a couple. Min wage should reflect the minimum amount required to meet basic needs, it is not meant to afford you all the luxuries in the world. A couple in a 1 bedroom would be able to afford the 1 bedroom and the potential ability to save for a down payment.

Perhaps the combination of factors should be an individual enough for a bachelor, a couple for a 1 bedroom and a family for a 2-3 bedroom.

[djforsberg]

Originally Posted by dmacc

Why is a 1 bedroom not suitable for a couple. Min wage should reflect the minimum amount required to meet basic needs, it is not meant to afford you all the luxuries in the world. A couple in a 1 bedroom would be able to afford the 1 bedroom and the potential ability to save for a down payment.

Perhaps the combination of factors should be an individual enough for a bachelor, a couple for a 1 bedroom and a family for a 2-3 bedroom.

Considering Canada is one of the wealthiest nations in the history of humanity, I’m sure we can allow for working people to not have to live in their kitchen. Anyways, these niggling details aren’t very relevant to the discussion at the moment.

[dmacc]

Originally Posted by thebasketballgeek

Avg Rent is actually $1317 a month as of Feb 2022 (page 51) and the wage required to have rent just be 30% of your income is about $27 an hour. I wonder what the median salary is in Winnipeg and how it compares to other cities in that regard.

Anyways only 3% of all dwelling units in the city would be considered affordable for someone making minimum wage. Increasing the wage is a necessity, but it has to be in conjunction with heavy investment into public housing.

Thanks for finding that info, it doesn't provide the average for the other sized units but if you assume the increase is equal across all unit sizes(not perfect but all I got), then the breakdown is as follows.

----------- 30% ---- 35% ---- 40% ---- 30% (Couple) - 20% (Family)
Bachelor - $15.18 - $13.01 - $11.38 - $ 7.59 -- $11.39
1 Bed - $19.82 - $16.97 - $14.86 - $ 9.91 -- $14.86
2 Bed - $25.32 - $21.71 - $19.00 - $12.66 -- $18.99
3+ Bed - $32.04 - $27.46 - $24.03 - $16.02 -- $24.03

I've also included families at 20% of their income as they would have much greater expenses associated to raising children. Obviously that is a much more difficult metric to measure as they would also be receiving other child care benefits that I can't begin to input into my napkin math above.

Couples obviously don't need to be considered in the decision as their ability to pool income is much greater.

[biguc]

Re: couples (and roommates), you'd think you could split your rent obligation (since, in fact, you are), but rental agencies typically want you both earning 3x rent in case you break up. It's kind of crazy.

These numbers are very interesting. It's not surprising that a lot of the low end is coming in around $14-15, which seems to be the going minimum wage in a lot of places.

The wisdom of crowds. Good posts, everyone.

Originally Posted by esquire

It's interesting that the construction of a huge-for-Winnipeg number of MURB units (both rental and condo) over the last 10 years doesn't seem to be having much of an impact in terms of cooling off rents, given that it has seemingly cooled off the actual value of those units... I've read real estate people making comments to that effect in various Free Press articles.

The simple supply/demand model doesn't really apply to rentals--at least not in real life where building a glut of rental housing in growing cities doesn't happen.

There is a lot of research on the connection between wages and rent though. Basically, rents adjust to what the market will bear. Wages go up, rents go up. So, somewhere like Silicon Valley can have a stagnant population and rents will still climb thanks to super high wages.

Raising minimum wage has an effect on rents too. We've been talking about 30% in this conversation. Interestingly enough, that's about how much the market bumps rents relative to minimum wages. So, if we want our minimum wage to make housing affordable, we have to account for the fact that it's a three steps forward, one step back process.

In part, it's good that rents have gone up in Winnipeg. It's a sign that wages are higher. But this hides another problem for low-income renters: all the cheap apartments converted to condos 10ish years ago. Those will never come back. It'll be a generation before the rentals built now will be affordable.

[ssiguy]

SK is raising theirs to $15/hr by 2024 as is NS and PEI/NB/NFLD are expected to follow suite. At the rate MB is going it will have a minimum wage $3/hr less than the next lowest.
Small wonder why MB continues to have a net outflow of people every year and why poverty levels are so high.

[djforsberg]

Originally Posted by ssiguy

SK is raising theirs to $15/hr by 2024 as is NS and PEI/NB/NFLD are expected to follow suite. At the rate MB is going it will have a minimum wage $3/hr less than the next lowest.
Small wonder why MB continues to have a net outflow of people every year and why poverty levels are so high.

It should have been $15/hour 10 years ago. Don’t worry, people won’t be flocking here (Sask).

[rrskylar]

Originally Posted by ssiguy

SK is raising theirs to $15/hr by 2024 as is NS and PEI/NB/NFLD are expected to follow suite. At the rate MB is going it will have a minimum wage $3/hr less than the next lowest.
Small wonder why MB continues to have a net outflow of people every year and why poverty levels are so high.

I believe Manitoba ranked last on Ukrainian refugees province of choice, crap weather, high taxes, low wages….not exactly attractive!

[blueandgoldguy]

Originally Posted by rrskylar

I believe Manitoba ranked last on Ukrainian refugees province of choice, crap weather, high taxes, low wages….not exactly attractive!

We should have told them about the national Ukrainian festival in Dauphin.

[thurmas]

Surprised no one on here mentioned how Stefanson is considering updating manitobas tax structure and rates for the first time in 25 years. She is also considering repealling the payroll tax for us to be more competitive with other provinces. These are long overdue but I doubt they will see the light of day before the pcs lose power next year as these sort of things should have been done 4 or 5 years ago when they got into power. Too little too late.

[Danny D Oh]

Originally Posted by thurmas

Surprised no one on here mentioned how Stefanson is considering updating manitobas tax structure and rates for the first time in 25 years. She is also considering repealling the payroll tax for us to be more competitive with other provinces. These are long overdue but I doubt they will see the light of day before the pcs lose power next year as these sort of things should have been done 4 or 5 years ago when they got into power. Too little too late.

Yes "considering" was her answer to a question at a Chamber luncheon. There's nothing substantive there.

Issue with all the "transforming" this current government has done is that they've left holes of hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue that they are borrowing to account for. The school tax changes have been very poorly planned in that sense. They are cutting some pretty tight corners that are about to blow up in our faces with school divisions not being able to properly fund transportation, building/bus maintenance, technology and other areas. They've also gutted the Department of Ed to the point that it no longer functions at all. Might seem minor but there's no oversight of many of the new programs this government (often to specifically subjugate school boards) has created such as the Teachers Idea Fund.

[Jammon]

Originally Posted by Danny D Oh

Yes "considering" was her answer to a question at a Chamber luncheon. There's nothing substantive there.

Issue with all the "transforming" this current government has done is that they've left holes of hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue that they are borrowing to account for. The school tax changes have been very poorly planned in that sense. They are cutting some pretty tight corners that are about to blow up in our faces with school divisions not being able to properly fund transportation, building/bus maintenance, technology and other areas. They've also gutted the Department of Ed to the point that it no longer functions at all. Might seem minor but there's no oversight of many of the new programs this government (often to specifically subjugate school boards) has created such as the Teachers Idea Fund.

Same thing happened with the health system transformation. Some great ideas, but very little has come to completion. And it hasn't helped- nurses are leaving the public sector for private agencies, physicians are jumping ship from the public sector and going into private practice or leaving the province despite some of the highest wages in the country. What a shit show.

I don't think I ever remember a time when the public opinion of this province was so poor. Seems like everyone I talk to across Canada is like "why are you still living there?" And tbh, I'm really down on this city and province. We just lack leadership on so many levels. Low wages, increased cost of living and no plan to deal with the major issues this city and province face. And a crappy, long winter and shortened cold spring sure hasn't helped.

[blueandgoldguy]

Stefanson continues to receive the lowest approval ratings among all the premiers...even 9 percentage points lower than Jason Kenney!

https://globalnews.ca/news/8919129/h...l-rating-poll/

[thurmas]

Pcs might get historic drubbing next year i would be surprised if they win 15 seats.

[wags_in_the_peg]

I'm a small "c" conservative and don't agree w all that has happened over past few years but there's no way Dougald & his Libs or Kinew & his speNDP are getting my vote.

[OTA in Winnipeg]

Originally Posted by thurmas

Pcs might get historic drubbing next year i would be surprised if they win 15 seats.

They really have it coming. I don't know what Pallister was doing other than him and Filmon putting the final nail in on MTS. The rest of it was just show.

Worthless fuckers the both of them. I hope I never see any of them ever again.

And Stephanson? Oh where, oh where, can I hide my 30 million? You couldn't make this up if you tried.

[thurmas]

Manitoba pcs are just horrible they are so focused on the deficit but nothing else they let everything turn to shit in the process ie infrastructure health care ect that the bill to fix the neglect they have done is much higher in the long run. Every time they are in power our province population growth shrinks and we head into a tail spin it happened in the late 70s with lyon happened in the 90s with filmon and is happening again the past 6 years

[wags_in_the_peg]

settle down thurmas

when NDP were in power they threw 100 of millions at health care and wait times didnt improve and we continued to have hallway medicine. as a matter of fact I know two process redesign experts who were employed by the hospitals to make effort to run things different. they had nothing but roadblocks wherever they turned, primarily from the 20+ different healthcare unions.

[thurmas]

Originally Posted by wags_in_the_peg

settle down thurmas

when NDP were in power they threw 100 of millions at health care and wait times didnt improve and we continued to have hallway medicine. as a matter of fact I know two process redesign experts who were employed by the hospitals to make effort to run things different. they had nothing but roadblocks wherever they turned, primarily from the 20+ different healthcare unions.

I have battled liver and colon cancer the past few years I know first hand how bad the pc cuts taking ers from 7 hospitals to 3 has made the system infinitely worse as I have waited 28 hours in hallways waiting for beds on several occasions. I am a conservative federally but this provincial pc party is pure garbage