Increasing minimum wage is needed to help low-income families? Really? How does that help when any cost increase is just passed on to the consumer?
Why are journalists continually parroting government and business story lines on this topic. This is a sad state of affair at the best of times, but in the middle of an election, surely somebody has to have the wherewithal to come forward, do some research, and ask the hard questions? Now is the best time to find and elect candidates that will work to find fair solutions for everyone.
From talking to people first hand, it would seem that the real issue isn’t dollars per hour but rather the lack and or disappearance of full-time jobs with benefits.
I am in no way suggesting that increasing the minimum wage is a bad idea.
However, I expect if someone were to dig further, they would confirm that most jobs paying minimum wage are part-time jobs without benefits, and, that most of these part-time jobs used to be full time.
One doesn’t have to look far to identify jobs that used to provide people with a livelihood. These jobs have now become part-time positions with no benefits.
Businesses claim they can’t afford to hire people full-time and that any increase in minimum wage will further reduce the number of people they can employ. The reality is more likely that under the current loophole-filled labour laws, businesses, especially in certain industries, are stuck having to match their competitors hiring practices to stay in business.
The concept of part-time was never intended to become a mainstay way for businesses to run. The only way to fix this issue is through government changes to the labour laws.
I am certain if there was a fair playing field where everyone has to follow the same rules, then businesses will be forced to restore traditional full-time jobs.
From my perspective, any business that has its doors open during regular business hours or for seven or more hours a day, should be providing full-time employment to their employees during those hours. Part-time work was intended to fill hours after regular hours.
Restoring full-time employment with benefits makes more sense to help people out of poverty then just bumping the minimum hourly wage.
T. Rudersdorfer
Coldstream
