To coin a Jim Prentice line “Math is Hard” and the truth is for many people struggling to make a living on minimum wage, math is hard.
It isn’t that math is too complicated, but for thousands of Albertans who are working for minimum or close to minimum wage, they are finding it is hard to make the math work for them with their limited resources.
Currently Alberta’s $10.20 minimum wage is tied with Saskatchewan’s for the lowest in the country. If you take the $9.20 minimum wage for liquor servers it could be argued Alberta’s minimum wage is the lowest in the country. Not that the other provinces fare much better, Ontario and Nunavut are tied for the highest minimum wage in the country at $11. The Northwest Territories will soon have the highest minimum at $12.50, with an increase slated for sometime in June.
However, that soon may be changing in Alberta. During the election campaign NDP leader Rachel Notely promised that a NDP government would increase the minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2018. A promise she has reiterated since becoming premier.
The increase would be done in stages with the first bump to $12 in the first year.
The question is will a hike in minimum wage have its desired effect of helping workers who fall below the poverty line?
Opponents of the increase argue that both businesses and the workers this policy is intended to help would be hurt. Canadian Federation of Independent (CFIB) analyst Amber Ruddy said small business would have to reduce workers’ hours, cut back training and, in some cases, eliminate jobs to cope with such a large wage increase. She cited a CFIB study which predicted the economy would lose 90,000 to 300,000 jobs for every 10 per cent increase in the minimum wage.
The former PC government for years argued that only 1.5 per cent of workers in Alberta make minimum wage and that the majority of those workers were young people still living at home.
Bill Moore-Kilgannon, executive director of Public Interest Alberta, rejected the CFIB job loss projection and its theory that most minimum wage earners are still living at home with their parents. Citing Statistics Canada reports, he said 77 per cent of low-wage workers in Canada are over age 20, and nearly half of those are between 25 and 44. Province wide, Moore-Kilgannon, said 383,900 Albertans earn less than $15 per hour. More than half are women. Ron Kneebone, an economist with the University of Calgary School of Public Policy, said a $15 per hour wage probably wouldn’t lead to catastrophic job losses, but said the increase alone wouldn’t be enough to raise the majority of the working poor out of poverty. Maybe not, but it’s a start.
