| As of November 1, Alberta will officially have the lowest minimum wage in Canada.
That’s the day Newfoundland raises its minimum wage and leaves Alberta’s $5.90 per hour as the lowest in the country – something Alberta’s opposition politicians are pushing the government to change.
New Democrat deputy leader Brian Mason says it’s a myth that nobody in Alberta’s hot economy actually makes minimum wage, so that’s no excuse not to raise it.
"There’s lots of people who are making it and are struggling to make ends meet," Mason says. "Any suggestions that everyone in Alberta is doing well is badly mistaken."
A spokesperson from Alberta Human Resources and Employment told Fast Forward that only Minister Clint Dunford could comment on the issue, but Dunford didn’t return phone calls.
The Alberta Government Web site says the province last raised its minimum wage in 1999, a year after a separate minimum wage for students was eliminated. That came amid a debate that often surfaces over the issue of minimum wage – does raising it actually hurt the people it’s trying to help by making it impossible for businesses to afford to hire employees?
A 1998 report in the American-based National Centre for Policy Alternatives says the last federal minimum wage increase in the U.S. lead to a decline in teenage employment of one to three per cent. Many fiscal conservatives say the market should dictate wages.
But a report by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives says the benefits of raising the minimum wage far outweigh any loss in jobs.
"It’s the old adage ‘If you have 100 people earning $6 an hour or 99 people earning $6.50, is everyone better off?’ And the answer is, overall, more money is earned by 99 people," says Michael Goldberg, one of the authors of the study.
"(Job losses) to minimum wage tends to impact most heavily on young people... but (job losses) are a teeny teeny faction.
"The employers who tend to hire large numbers of minimum wage employees are not influenced by minimum wage. They are influenced by what we do as consumers and the economy."
Goldberg says there is no reason Alberta’s minimum wage shouldn’t be higher, especially when comparing the cost of living in Calgary to places with higher minimum wages, like Newfoundland and Nova Scotia.
He adds that measures like the poverty line should be used to set the wage rate, rather than just the whims of politicians.
Mason says Alberta should gradually increase the wage to $7 per hour – that would still leave it behind a handful of provinces, but would be a start.
"We believe it is possible, even considering the dominance of the Tory party in Alberta," Mason says. |
