$20 hourly minimum wage suggestion ludicrous — we need to look at living income and necessary top-ups

It’s been 44 years since I graduated from university and the only real lesson I took from it is that I learned how much I didn’t know and I’m an expert in nothing.

University professors often try and convince us that because of who they are, and choose to talk on a subject, that we should believe them. Poppycock!

Case in point, the recent commentary from a MUN professor touting a $20 hourly minimum wage. That’s ludicrous!

The majority of minimum wage earners work in the food industry, either in grocery stores or restaurants. Wage increases of any kind have to be passed on to the consumers, including minimum wage earners. Furthermore, other service industries including retail stores, service stations, etc. employ minimum wage employees and an increase will also be passed on to them.

So essentially, employees get it given with one hand and taken with the other.

Also, other employees earning $20 hourly are not going to stand by while minimum wage earners get a 25 per cent pay hike. So, they want increases and inflation is then out of control.

The solution to assisting the working poor is not with minimum wage increases. A single kid living at home with his parents can do well, earning minimum wage. A single mother maintaining a home with two kids cannot. A family with two kids with both parents earning minimum wage perhaps can.

The main problem is that our government views minimum wage increases as the easy way out. They are not willing to do the hard work.

We need to determine not what is a living wage, but what is a living after tax income. In this province today, a family with two children, for example, needs $18,000 for accommodations, $9,500 for food, $6,000 for transportation, $2,000 for medical needs, $2,000 for clothing/ school supplies, $2,000 for entertainment/recreation. That’s $39,500 after tax dollars just for the basics. So, this same family with two minimum wage earners will earn $54,600 before tax dollars annually and this combined with family allowance will allow them to live reasonably.

But a single parent in the same situation will still have close to the same expenses but will only earn one-half the income. We see this every day when an OAS spouse dies and the family income is cut in half. Seniors are forced to leave their homes and move into long-term care because they can’t maintain the home. So herein lies the problem.

Governments need to determine what is a living income for individuals and family units. In situations where a unit does not earn the living income, government needs to top it up — not with a wage increase but with a social payment in the form of a payment or tax relief.

Many, many people on social assistance in this province want to work but they cannot because working does not give them a living income. Topping them up, giving them a drug card and other such services, will encourage them to join the workforce and they will willingly do it because we all want the social benefits of working and its related social connections.

We know what I am suggesting works because our government has a program of rewarding social assistance recipients for returning to work and it is effective. But it’s a short-term solution and we need long-term solutions, such as what I am suggesting. Tim’s won’t have to close at 8 p.m., self-checkouts will disappear, immigrants will not be the only faces we see in our grocery stores and restaurants, etc.

In the end, this suggestion will save government money. Instead of having to pay people a full living income, people will return to work and government will only have to pay a portion of their living income. Tax returns will be the main monitoring tool for the program once the program is established after the initial hard work is done.

For a single parent with two children working in a minimum wage job, the minimum wage needs to be $35 hourly to have a reasonable standard of living. So minimum wage increases are clearly not the solution and for those who suggest it are like mice who choose to vacation in a cat colony.

Tom Badcock

St. John’s