The following article was originally published by myself on Word Press in March of 2015.
Stop fighting! Put your signs down and back away. For a while now groups have called for a higher minimum wage and the higher quality of life they see with it. Many people believe the government just has to wave a wand and make what they see as the right decisions and they can have their ideal society. These insanely stupid and dangerous ideas need to be put into check. What people don't think of as much are unintended consequences of government action. For example, when people say rents are too high and lobby for rent controls the developers respond by stopping development on new units thereby causing a housing shortage because their incentive to build has been taken from them. Also, since they're not getting what they see as the market value from their properties landlords are not quick to respond tenant's concerns and the quality of the building deteriorates rapidly. Recently in Ontario a tribunal raised the tariff on imported rebar for construction by 40% to protect local producers. However, western Canada relies on importing its rebar from Asian countries as the Ontario producers don't produce enough so that added cost will be significant burden. This list goes on.
As far as wages go understand that as wages are mandated higher that doesn't mean that the employer's ability to pay those wages automatically increases as well. So people who are lobbying for a $15 an hour wage are essentially saying that it's better for one person to be employed at $15 instead of 2 people to be employed at the same place for $7.50. Not to mention an employer who would hire someone at $10 an hour will have to spread his work over fewer employees adding to their stress and workload if the minimum jumps to $15. An article in the paper said that single mothers are being hurt by BC's current minimum wage. You know what would hurt single mothers more? A higher minimum wage that wipes potential jobs off of the map leaving fewer jobs available that require more experience and skill than those women and others may have. Larger companies such as McDonalds in places like Japan have already put into places push button and automated processes for customers to order their food and decreased their human workforce. If forced to pay higher wages they can do the same here in North America and still be well off. It's the smaller chains and local businesses which will have to let employees go and be stuck with lower productivity.
Speaking of insanely dangerous ideas there's this concept that each job should provide a living wage or there should be a minimum income through taxation. Who's butthole is all this money supposed to come out of? Lower skill jobs are not supposed to provide the employee with a living wage leaving them with little reason to improve their skills. They're supposed to be a starting point to progress from. A living wage or income would have to be a significant amount of money and would essentially be a direct transfer of wealth from the rich to the lazy. It's also a pipe dream and would never work. The rich are rich for a reason and that's because they're not slaves to stupid people or stupid government policy. The rich get rich because they provide superior value in a competitive market place to their customers by providing them with the in demand goods and services they desire. In this way they are rightfully rich, unless of course they end up achieving from government favorable legislation that somehow limits their competition. So what do you think the rich are going to do when their incentive to produce is taken away by the stupid masses? They're going to pick up their shit and leave for a less socialist climate. I heard Singapore and Hong Kong are nice this time of year. This leaves the rest of the population with nothing to do but to fuck themselves.
Ultimately to pay their existing workforce the higher wage, producers would have to pass this cost onto the consumers. This would go on top of rising insurance and hydro rates and the about 43% of our income the average citizen already pays in taxes according to the taxpayer federation. So this policy would leave the consumer with far less disposable income in his pocket thereby killing employment from two directions. One from it being less affordable to hire and two there being less need to hire. According to an RBC report after a net loss of jobs in 2013 BC added 36 000 full time jobs in 2014. There’s no need to undue this progress and turn BC into a barren desert for entry level jobs by fighting for 15.
H. Kandola
Surrey BC