Minimum wage as a business strategy keeps workers in poverty
KAMLOOPS — With Ontario having increased the minimum wage to $14 and Alberta making similar changes, I thought it an appropriate time to write of what for some, is a belief in and acceptance of purposeful poverty. In this instance, I’m speaking of the use and acceptance of poverty as a tool for business success.
Up until now, we have normalized an economic system that uses minimum wage as a business success strategy. There seems to still be a corporate philosophy that endorses poverty in the name of shareholder equity and in so doing, institutionalizing subsistence living as a perfectly normal 21st Century way of life.
Once thought to be the domain of entry level jobs for young workers, minimum wage jobs are becoming the norm. In fact, according to a study in 2015 and contrary to what you may think, minimum wage workers are now more likely to be an adult female. And even more startling, these jobs are their permanent form of employment.
In 2002 and for the following eight years, the BC government accelerated the concept of legislated poverty by freezing the minimum wage at $8.00 an hour. Over that time, minimum wage earners in BC became the lowest paid in Canada, while inflation continued to erode the value of what little they were being paid. The impact on purchasing power was both dramatic and long lasting. In fact, by 2010, an employee working 40 hours a week had experienced a real annual loss of $3,000 in buying power.