Making wage decisions based on plight of business never helps the poor

By Letter to the Editor on September 28, 2018.

Re: “Better wages won’t fix poverty: Thrive,” Sept. 14

There is no quick fix to end poverty, but a living wage would ease the hardship for many. The business community sits quietly by when the price of everything rises — grocery item after grocery item, rent, clothing, gasoline, etc., etc. And yet the minute someone suggests the working poor could use a decent, long overdue increase to their (low by any standard) take-home pay, the uproar from business is relentless.

The furor has been heard for about three years now. Our own city rulemakers, who want to end homelessness and be champions of the poor, make decisions that negatively affect the working poor, all the time, with increases to the cost of utilities, city programs and services. Everyone wants to help the poor, but no one makes decisions from their viewpoint or with their best interests in heart or mind.

The suggestions from Thrive in the aforementioned article are to, “freeze the minimum wage until a host of other measures and public policy initiatives are enacted” and/or to, “address the situation with skill-building initiatives and employment support.” What a bunch of nonsense! Both suggestions reek of more government job creation, at the white collar level, paid for and shouldered by the tax-paying working poor. Who, anywhere on the planet, would have their own wage increase doled out, using that criteria as the standard?

Poverty is a layered and complicated issue and cannot be addressed with a single solution. However, the financial struggle of the working poor is one issue that can be addressed with an increase to the minimum wage, if business would stop clawing back every single nickel of that increase by raising prices. But there go profit margins to those taking all the financial risk. So what is the answer? Where is the balance? I don’t know, but making all the decisions based on the plight of business never helps the poor and the working poor soon become the homeless if they don’t get relief.

The fact is anyone who claims they can manage on Thrive’s living wage of $13.65 per hour is completely out of touch with reality.

Vicki Thome

Medicine Hat

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