The provincial government is looking for a new way to set the minimum wage, but whatever system it selects, the economic and moral debate is not going to vanish.
Jobs Minister Shirley Bond said last week that raising sa国际传媒鈥檚 minimum wage to $15 an hour is a non-starter.
鈥淲e鈥檙e not going to be moving to $15 an hour any time soon,鈥� she said, after the sa国际传媒 Federation of Labour dropped in to the legislature to urge MLAs to raise the wage from its current $10.25.
There is no easy answer to the minimum-wage question. Business groups rightly warn that higher minimum wages hit small businesses hard and could lead to fewer entry-level jobs.
However, the labour federation points out that at minimum wage, a worker will be $6,000 a year below the poverty line. It also says that the common picture of such workers being teenagers who work for small local businesses is not entirely accurate. Nearly half of minimum wage workers are over 25, and 46 per cent of minimum-wage workers are employed by businesses with more than 500 workers.
Bond counters that the number of people earning minimum wage has dropped to 110,000 and more than half of those still live at home.
No matter how many numbers fly around, we have to keep in mind that these are real people whose lives are affected by a pay scale that is more than just a debating point. They are businesspeople who are trying to stay afloat in difficult times and they are workers who are hanging on by their fingernails with financial ruin only a paycheque away.
Ignoring the issue is not an option, despite the desire of some people to do just that.
Some might say: 鈥淚f you can鈥檛 afford to live in Victoria, move somewhere cheaper.鈥� However, if all the low-wage workers move away, who will make the coffee and clean the floors and pump the gas for people who can afford to live here?
The people who do those jobs have to be able to survive, so we need a reasonable way to set a minimum wage. Alberta and Saskatchewan take into account the Consumer Price Index, average hourly wages and the price of a basket of goods and services. A system like that would at least relate the wage to the cost of living.
Bond says the government is looking at something similar, which would offer some predictability for both workers and employers.
However, the province is clearly not willing to raise the minimum wage to anything close to the 鈥渓iving wage,鈥� a figure computed by non-profit groups to ensure that workers can afford to live above the poverty line in their communities.
About the only jurisdiction that comes close is Australia, which is known for having the highest minimum wage in the world, at $16.87, with lower rates for teenagers. The Australian economy hasn鈥檛 collapsed under the weight, but no other country has rushed to follow suit.
It鈥檚 worth noting that some countries 鈥� including Italy, Sweden and Switzerland 鈥� have no minimum wage at all, relying instead on collective agreements to effectively set the levels. Low-wage workers in sa国际传媒, who generally are in non-unionized jobs, need a more reliable system.
For too long, sa国际传媒 has limped along, setting the minimum wage in response to political pressure rather than through any kind of objective measure. Bond鈥檚 commitment to find a new path is commendable.
It won鈥檛 end the debate over the affordability of cities such as Victoria, but the working poor will no longer have to rely on the whims of politicians.
