While newly minted Premier Christy Clark was busy patting herself on the back over last week's announcement of an increase in the minimum wage, the news is not welcome for many.
If you happen to be in the restaurant or hospitality industry, and you've just been hit with the Liberal trifecta of the hated HST, the draconian changes to the impaired driving laws and now a double digit boost in the minimum wage, you must be wondering if this is all worth it.
In her haste to distance herself from Gordon Campbell, Clark pulled a classic Gordo move of shooting first and asking questions later.
The response to her announcement from the Business Council of BC and the Canadian Federation of Independent Business suggest that there was little in the way of meaningful consultation.
In a recent article in the online Fraser Institute publication Fraser Forum entitled The Hard Facts about BC's Minimum Wage, Niels Veldhuis and Amela Karabegovic point out that "the claim that B.C. has the lowest minimum wage in Canada does not take into account the ability of businesses to pay the minimum wage."
They argue that a more appropriate way to measure the wage would be based on productivity (output per worker). The article uses stats from Statistic Canada, Human Resources and Skills Development Canada and TD Financial Group to show that Alberta's minimum wage of $8.80 is 13 per cent of the worker's productivity whereas B.C.'s $8 wage is 19 per cent of this province's productivity.
So, the article argues, since B.C. workers produce less, adjusting our minimum wage for productivity actually equates to our minimum wage being higher than Alberta, Saskatchewan and Newfoundland.
Next, the argument that raising the minimum wage somehow benefits poor or low income families conveniently ignores the facts that according to Stats Canada research, 59 per cent of Canadian minimum wage earners are aged 15 to 24, and nearly 90 per cent live at home.
In response to this hike, business will do what it must to survive; it will cut jobs and hours.
So the people who suffer the highest unemployment partially due to a lack of experience will now find the situation even tougher.
According to a recent Fraser Institute report on the topic, the increase from $8 to $10 would cost B.C. over 52,000 jobs, with employment for the 15 to 24 age group decreasing between three and six per cent.
Premier Clark's so-called "Families First" agenda is starting to look a lot more like "populist politics first."
