Most of those getting it are not teenagers, and are making well below the poverty line
Vancouver Sun
By Stephen Hume
April 28, 2009

Ninety-one years ago last week, on April 23, 1918, British Columbia enacted legislation setting a minimum wage floor and becoming -- along with Manitoba -- the first of the Canadian provinces to do so.

One major impetus for the minimum wage standards that subsequently emerged across North America was protection for vulnerable and often ruthlessly exploited female workers.

In 2009, the minimum wage in British Columbia is one of the stark points of differentiation between Liberals seeking a return to power and the New Democratic Party which seeks to displace them. The core argument is whether a wage floor punishes or protects women from exploitation.

Liberals say the minimum wage should continue at its present level of $8, where it has been frozen since 2001 and which now is the lowest in the country, a distinction B.C. shares with Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick.

The NDP says it should rise to $10, which would make it the highest in Canada but still more than $6 an hour less than what's been identified as the requirement for a basic living wage in Vancouver.

More than 60,000 workers in B.C. -- the great majority of them women -- are now paid the minimum wage according to the B.C. Federation of Labour. Almost 300,000 other workers earn less than $10 an hour. So either way, the consequences of this debate will directly affect 360,000 workers and it also represents a fundamental gender equality issue.

Liberal candidates, backed by conservative economists at think-tanks like the Fraser Institute and business advocacy groups, argue that raising the minimum wage is a job-killer, involves unwarranted meddling in the labour market and imposes an unfair burden on the small businesses which comprise most of those employers paying minimum wages. Small business will respond to a rise in the minimum wage by shedding jobs or by reducing hours for employees, say these critics of the NDP.

NDP candidates, backed by progressive economists at think-tanks like the Centre for Policy Alternatives, labour and anti-poverty advocacy groups, argue that the negative impacts of raising the minimum are negligible and that the benefits to the working poor clearly outweigh marginal costs to employers.

Putting more money in the pockets of the working poor is a direct stimulus to the economy in recession that's more effective than forgiving banks their toxic debts while they pass on only a fraction of reduced interest rates to consumers, say these critics of the Liberals.

So, what's the background to these opposing arguments?

One of the arguments against raising minimum wages is that to do so discourages employment of the least skilled entry-level workers. …

Meanwhile, here are some facts. B.C.'s Federation of Labour says most of the lowest-paid workers here are not teens but people who are already in their 20s. National statistics confirm that in 2008 only 35 per cent of minimum wage earners were teenagers. In other words, 65 per cent of minimum wage earners are adults. So this is not about teenagers living at home while they gain their first work experience, it's about people trying to support themselves and their families.

Statistical wrangling among economists aside, it seems to me there's a clear moral dimension to the debate.

In the eight years that B.C.'s minimum wage was frozen, inflation drove up the cost of living index. And as businesses raised prices to cover their costs, the average hourly wage in B.C. was also increased over the same period. It rose by 24 per cent. Provincial politicians voted themselves a 29-per-cent increase over the same period. Some senior public servants were granted increases even greater than that by the legislature.

This effectively means that while the mainstream shielded itself from inflation with wage and price increases, those working poor compelled to accept the frozen statutory minimum saw the purchasing power of their wages erode by 17.4 per cent.

If, as economists from the Centre of Policy Alternatives argue, the basic cost of food, clothing, housing and transportation in Greater Vancouver and greater Victoria now require an hourly a wage of at least $16.74 simply to survive, it means tens of thousands of the working poor are condemned to live on less than an adequate living wage.

I say condemned because minimum wage workers earn far less than the federal government's low-income cutoffs, also called "the poverty line." As health authorities repeatedly point out, low income is a key indicator for much higher rates of fatal heart disease, diabetes, cancer and other dangerous and debilitating disorders. Low income results in dramatically shortened life expectancy. It's also an indicator of ethnicity and gender -- a high proportion of these very low income workers are both female and aboriginal.

For me, the moral argument trumps the ideological. Frankly, if a business can't afford to pay its employees a living wage, then it can't afford to do business….

If a government is prepared to forfeit the lives of its poorest workers, condemning them -- and their children -- to poorer health and substantially reduced lifespans as a consequence of low income -- then we voters should assist it in seriously rethinking its priorities….