A Little Hard To Swallow

Despite the fact that I think and write a great deal about the disparities and inequities that plague our society, I am almost embarrassed to admit that until now, I had never heard of something called The Big Mac Index, launched, according to a recent article in The Star, in 1986 as a “lighthearted guide” to global purchasing power.

While its original purpose was as a tool to make exchange-rate theory more digestible, it has also become a barometer of purchasing power. In Britain, for example, which currently has a minimum hourly wage of ₤6.70, it would take 26 minutes of minimum wage labour to buy a Big Mac. That country has a target minimum wage of ₤9 by 2020, at which level it would take only 18 minutes to make the purchase. How does this compare with other countries?

Denmark is well ahead of the pack at a current 16 minutes. Australia: 18 minutes. France: 25 minutes.

Canada? A chart in the Financial Times shows our country at 33 minutes, which closely equates to a minimum-wage worker in Toronto, at $11.25 an hour, paying $6.10 for two all-beef patties, special sauce, etc. That same worker can look forward to a Dickensian 15-cent-an-hour increase come October.

This is not good, and our country could ultimately become an unenviable outlier when it comes to fair compensation, since the movement for increasing the minimum wage is gaining momentum in many jurisdictions:

Last Thursday, California passed a six-year phase-in to a $15-an-hour minimum wage — a landmark achievement as it’s the first state-wide success in the country. Seattle started its phase-in a year ago, with a $15-an-hour target set for Jan. 1, 2017. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, who spent part of the winter travelling around in a “Fight for $15” branded bus, saw his push for a statewide $15 minimum watered down Thursday, but scored significant gains nonetheless, including a three-year phase in to $15 in New York City from the current $9.

Such increases are to be embraced, not opposed. As I noted recently, California's goal of increasing its wage will raise the incomes of 30 to 40% of workers in that state.

But what about all those fraught cries that such moves will result in massive job loss? According to Britain's Low Pay Commission, and as reported by The Star,

the commission wrestled with the predictable “job killer” charge — that businesses facing increased costs will flee or retrench, hurting vulnerable workers the most.

The “range of evidence,” the commission found from more than 140 research projects, was that the national minimum wage “has succeeded in raising pay for workers without damaging employment or the economy.”

While most past increases have admittedly been more gradual and modest in scope, the Commission

points out that businesses have previously worked around increased payroll costs by a variety of measures, including reducing non-wage costs or increasing productivity.

And there is one more thing that neither the Commission nor critics consider: the likelihood that the vast majority of people will not object to paying a little more for their products since it will allow their fellow-citizens the opportunity to conduct their lives with a little more dignity and a little more security.

Who could argue with that?

Ronald McDonald's Secret Agenda

As Johnny Carson used to say, "Folks, I merely report these things".

UPDATED: More On The Minimum Wage

There has been very much a predictable reaction from business to the Wynne government's decision to raise the Ontario minimum wage to $11 per hour as of June 1. Even though this modest increase will do little to lift the working poor out of poverty, the commercial sector is running about shouting that the sky will fall, prognosticating a loss of jobs as they take up a defensive position against something that will, they claim, eat away at their profits.

The following video from City TV offers a smattering of a debate over the issue; unfortunately, I no longer seem able to play video from the CBC, where much more detailed discussion has taken place, so this will have to do. Following the video, I turn to Joe Fiorito's latest observations about working poverty as his column today returns to the story of Doreen, whom I discussed yesterday.

As noted previously, Joe Fiorito has pointed out what a hardscrabble existence Doreen, a personal care worker, leads. Today, he adds to that portrait:

She said, “I broke my glasses last July. I can see, but fine stuff I can’t read.” You guessed right. She has not replaced her glasses. This is the kind of poverty that hurts deep in the bone, dulls the senses, and strangles hope. She has not stopped trying.

Compounding Doreen's problems are the expenses involved in keeping her qualifications current; she recently received a letter from one of the agencies for whom she is on an on-call list:

The letter advised Doreen that, if she wanted to stay active on the agency’s list and be eligible for work in the future, then she had to renew her first aid and CPR certificates.

Trouble is, the course preferred by that agency costs $115 and is only offered on weekends. Doreen works on the weekend for an elderly couple. What this means is that, in order to take the course and renew her certificate, she would have to cough up a day’s pay out of pocket to attend, and she would have to miss two days’ work on top of that.

There are more details about Doreen's travails in Firotio's piece, but I think you get the picture.

As I suggested yesterday, unless and until we are willing to put a human face on the working poor, their plight will never be addressed with any real justice.

UPDATE: Andrew Coyne and business representatives have recently suggested that minimum wage increases are a blunt instrument with which to attack poverty, and that a guaranteed income might be preferable. The cynic in me suggests this could be yet another way that business wants government to subsidize their operations; should they ever express a willingness to give up some of the generous corporate tax cuts that have come their way over the past several years as a show of good faith, perhaps then I will take them seriously.

A Way To Address The Problem of Restaurant Poverty Wages

Although this is an American solution, I don't see why it wouldn't work in Canada as well.



Click here if you would like more information about The National Diners Guide.

Putting A Face On Minimum-Wage Poverty

Last evening I watched a fascinating documentary on PBS' Nature* about the black crested macaque, a monkey that is endemic to rainforests in Indonesia, which includes the island of Sulawesi. The monkeys are a badly endangered species whose numbers have dropped 90% over the last 25 years thanks to hunters who sell them as bush meat in local markets, this despite the fact that such hunting and sales are illegal. The film showed the almost human side of the monkeys, with their elaborate social interactions and hierarchies.

Wildlife cameraman and biologist Colin Stafford-Johnson, who first recorded them 25 years ago, had a purpose beyond merely acquainting viewers with these riveting creatures. Working with area groups and biologists, the plan was to show local populations the film in the hope that they would see the monkeys as fully-alive beings not so different from themselves, thereby engendering an empathy that might deter them from eating them. Early results suggest some success with this strategy.

Being able to relate to issues, problems and plights on a human and humane level, being able to see beyond arid statistics, is, in my view, essential if, as a society and species, we are ever to confront and solve some of our most pressing issues. It was in this spirit that I appreciated a recent piece by The Star's Joe Fiorito entitled Life on minimum wage is not a decent living.

Certainly we know the statistics: one in eight foodbank users in Canada are the working poor; 500,000 Ontarians, one out of nine, work at minimum wage jobs. But what is the human face of such poverty?

Looking through the eyes and experience of Doreen, a personal care worker, Fiorito offers that human face:

She is single. She is in her fifties. She has a bum knee and a bad back. She also has some trouble with her vision; a brain tumour, benign, she isn’t worried.

She lives in a rent-geared-to-income apartment in midtown Toronto. While we talked, she was waiting for her church to deliver a grocery voucher so she could afford to buy some groceries. Why?

Because Doreen can’t always afford to feed herself on the money she makes for the hours she gets.

But wait, there's more!

Dorren is an on-call worker, and if she is lucky, she will work nine-hour days, four days per week, thereby clearing a mere $1,240 per month.

Her rent is subsidized; she pays $592 a month, which leaves her with $648. A Metropass costs her $133. Her phone costs close to $20. She buys phone cards to talk to her mother, who lives in another country. Her cable and Internet cost $68 a month.

She also owes $900 on her credit card; yes, she sometimes uses her credit card for food.

She also takes certain medications which are not covered by the provincial health plan. “I had a knee replacement. My back is out. I still have to work. Sometimes I go without pain medication because I can’t afford it.” I repeat: She sometimes goes without her pain medication because she can’t always afford it.

Not a very pretty picture, is it? And not one that will in any measurable way be improved by Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne's decision to raise the minimum wage by 75 cents on June 1. The grinding face of working poverty continues to confront us and, thanks to a lack of political will, confound us.



* If you want to view the PBS show on the macaques, you will need a VPN such as Hola, free software that will mask your I.P. address so that it looks like you are an American viewer. (The PBS show is not licensed for viewing in Canada.)

Raising The Minimum Wage: Countering The Right-Wing Propagandists

Given the disappointing news about the minimum wage coming out of Ontario, and the relentless propaganda from the right about wage increases being job killers while conveniently ignoring the experience of other jurisdictions, perhaps the following video can provide some balance:

More Thoughts On The Minimum Wage

Although I have written several previous posts on the need to substantially increase the minimum wage so that it becomes a living wage, I have been planning an update. However, I doubt that today will be the day for that update since, once again over my morning coffee, I have come across two thoughtful letters in The Star that I feel compelled to share with you.

Although the first letter looks at the poverty pervasive in Toronto thanks in no small measure to the current Ontario hourly minimum of $10.25, the second looks at the broader provincial consequences of such paltry remuneration. I am sure that similar conditions prevail in the rest of Canada.

And, as letter-writer McAdam asks, Where is the report by Ontario’s Minimum Wage Advisory Panel? My suspicion is that Premier Wynne, with a spring election likely, will be sitting on it for a long, long time unless she is that rare, almost extinct breed of politician capable of real leadership.

Re: Time to give poorest a raise, Editorial Jan. 16

There are lots of social and public policy ideas that we can afford to take our time and have a full and long debate about before moving ahead towards a solution, but raising the minimum wage should be a no-brainer. Those who oppose raising the minimum wage to a living wage, like Tim Hudak or the Fraser Institute, obviously have neither the head nor the heart to reach this sane conclusion.

You simply cannot afford to live and eat in Toronto on a minimum wage salary, and those who are trying to do so are getting sick because of it. That’s the information provided by the brave doctors and other medical professionals who are finally speaking the truth about the impact of a society that pays its CEO millions of dollars a year while thousands of our citizens are working hard every day just trying to survive. This is income inequality in its rawest and most brutal form and anyone who condones this situation is complicit in allowing it to continue.

This is one issue that we can begin to fix today by raising the minimum wage. It will not take people completely out of danger, but it will be a sign that we still recognize and reward hard work in our society. And it will be a step in the right direction.

We will need to do much more, like taxation reform to make our system fairer, increased support for seniors, and much more investment in training and development of our young people. We can take some time and talk about those long-term solutions. But raising the minimum wage is urgent.

Katie Arnup, Toronto

The Star points out a few of the huge costs from Ontario’s poverty-level minimum wage, including damage to one’s health, as doctors and other health care providers have noted, besides the hardship and frustration of poverty. But there are many other harmful impacts.

Some 375,000 Ontarians must rely on foodbank handouts to ward off hunger. Recent studies show that about 11 per cent of food bank users in Ontario are employed, but must turn to foodbanks because of their low earnings. Imagine the thousands of volunteer hours devoted to survival programs such as these.
And what about the frustrations for families in which parents must work two minimum-wage jobs in order to make ends meet, and who thus have little time to spend with their children?

My wife teaches many low-income students in Toronto’s Flemingdon Park neighbourhood where this situation is all too common. She sees the emotional price that her students pay when their parents are missing in action, because of overwork and fatigue.
The Star rightly asks: where is the report by Ontario’s Minimum Wage Advisory Panel? When I presented to the panel last fall, a staffperson told me that its report was expected by December. Where is it?

What kind of society tolerates a situation in which hard-working people must still endure poverty? The plight of low-wage workers is a vital issue that should figure prominently in Ontario’s public life, especially as a provincial election approaches.

Anglican Church members across the GTA and surrounding region are currently debating a proposal to raise the minimum wage in two stages to $14.50 per hour by 2015, above the poverty line. If we all raise our voices, we can improve the lives of our society’s poorest paid workers.

Murray MacAdam, Social Justice & Advocacy Consultant, Anglican Diocese of Toronto

In This Season Of Getting And Spending

... a timely reminder about the practices of the world's biggest retailer:



This article is also worthy of perusal.

So They Really Do Care After All

This story should lay to rest any of the insidious propaganda about Walmart not caring about its workers.

Once In A While Their Voice Is Heard

It is a truism to state that the poor have little power to influence the political discussion. Those toiling away at minimum wage jobs, our silent serfs, for want of choice, are one of the invisible minorities (perhaps soon to be a majority?) seemingly easy to ignore.

This was baldly demonstrated last week when the infamously consultative Premier Kathleen Wynne chose the default position so near and dear to politicos everywhere: political pandering. Despite the fact that she struck a panel to study how to raise the minimum wage, she reassured a nervous questioner in Simcoe that a major hike in the minimum wage is not 'on the table.'

Yet sometimes serfs refuse to be ignored. It was with some satisfaction that I watched the following video of a Chicago McDonalds worker challenge the President of U.S. operations as he addressed the Union League Club in that city. While her temerity, doubtlessly borne of both courage and desperation, was not without consequences, she did a service for all who work in obscurity and ignominy:





Returning to Ontario, Star readers in today's edition offer their version of comeuppetance to Ms Wynne:


Re: Infrastructure key to Wynne restoring faith in Liberals, Oct. 6

It is discouraging to read Premier Kathleen Wynne’s assertion that a “major hike” in the minimum wage is “off the table.”

Ever ready to converse, consult and discuss options like the future of wind turbines with Ontarians before making definitive policy statements, the Premier doesn’t hesitate to be declarative on minimum wage policy even though she has a panel of experts touring the province to consult with the public on the issue.
The evidence for a strong social justice position on the minimum wage is stronger than for the pros and cons of wind turbines. Currently, a full-time, full-year worker on minimum wage earns more than $1,000 below the province’s official poverty line. How can the “social justice” Premier morally justify that disparity so quickly?

The Premier missed the opportunity presented by the question in Simcoe to educate the larger public about the inadequacy and injustice of current minimum wage policy and to commit her government to a basic minimum wage above poverty as a social justice priority.
Peter Clutterbuck, Poverty Free Ontario, Toronto

Wynn cool to raising minimum wage to $14, Oct. 8

Our seen-to-be-doing-something premier has got herself on the wrong side of the issue. She eagerly defends her fat-cat friends at the Pan Am games and their salary bonuses (“Wynne backs Pan Am’s $7M bonuses for executives,” Oct. 8) while 9 per cent of all Ontario workers toil at the minimum wage level (having skyrocketed from 4.3 per cent in 2003) of $10.25 per hour.

Oh, she is doing something — the Liberals appointed a panel last summer to study how best to set future minimum wage increases. We don’t need more study. We need prompt and meaningful action. If you’re not prepared to do something, please call an election and let’s get someone in who can.

R. Scott Marsh, Oakville

Our tax system greatly favours the rich. Where are the considerations for people living on poverty and many of them are working?

We have become a sick province when we no longer care about our fellow man. How can anyone call this social justice?

Premier Kathleen Wynne would like everyone to work and stay poor. She should get a life and look at the real picture.

Mary Beth Anger, Toronto

More On The Minimum Wage

The struggle to raise the minimum wage has been the subject of several of my recent posts. The current wage of $10.25 in Ontario is as inadequate as the $7.25 that the majority of jurisdictions in the United States pays, forcing millions to live below the poverty line even if they are working 35-40 hours per week.

Today's Star has an editorial championing an increase, perhaps not the 40% immediate increase that poverty activists are calling for in Ontario, but at least a reasonable step toward that goal.

Consider this startling fact from the editorial:

Some 534,000 Ontarians work 35 hours or more each week in fast-growing retail and service industries, earning the provincial minimum wage of $10.25 an hour. Indeed, with annual earnings under $20,000, these workers will never even crack the paltry official low-income measurement of $23,000 a year. That means a lot of people are working very hard just to remain in poverty.

While praising the Liberals for having made some progress on this file, given that the much-despised previous Harris government had frozen it at $6.85 an hour for nine years, the fact that it has been stuck at $10.25 since 2010 leads the paper to advocate the following:

The least the government should do is continue the same trend of raising the minimum wage 2.5 times faster than the rate of inflation. That would mean an increase of 13.5 per cent, to catch up since 2010. It translates into an increase of $1.40 an hour, bringing the minimum wage up to about $11.65.

That would still leave many full-time workers stuck in poverty. And it would disappoint activists pushing for an immediate increase to $14 an hour – the level that would bring earnings just above the poverty line. But it would mean a hike of almost 40 per cent, a huge burden on many businesses.

While business will always bewail and bemoan any increase that might mean having to share a little more of the profits made possible by their serfs workers, the plan seems eminently doable and a decent start on the road to a living wage that everyone deserves.

A Monday Morning Thought

The Struggle To Raise The Minimum Wage

I have written several recent posts on the campaign gaining traction across the United States to raise the minimum wage to $15 per hour from the current average of just over $7. That struggle has now come to Ontario, where those living in poverty thanks to the current minimum of $10.25 are demonstrating for a boost to $14 per hour. Raising it to that level would put workers just above the poverty line, assuming a full working week.

The minimum wage campaign, which began Aug. 14, is planning similar days of action across Ontario on the 14th of every month in advance of next spring’s provincial budget, when the Wynne government is expected to weigh in on the matter.

As reported by the CBC, according to Statistics Canada, more than 800,000 Canadians were working at or below minimum wage in 2009.

Lest one think that $10.25 is a princely sum, consider the circumstance and words of some of the demonstration's participants:

Toronto meat packer Gyula Horvath has to work a gruelling 50 to 60 hours a week to survive on his wages of just $10.25 an hour.

“It’s no good,” the 22-year-old Hungarian immigrant, who is also supporting a wife on his meagre minimum wage earnings, said Saturday. “It’s very hard to pay rent.”

Call centre worker Jenny Kasmalee, 38, can rarely afford new clothing or other personal things on her $10.25 per hour.

“I have always worked for minimum wage,” she said. “It’s not much.”

Estina Sebastian-Jeetan, a mother-of-two who attended the rally, described some of the challenges she faces as a low-wage earner. "Sometimes I skip my medication in order to make ends meet," she said.

Cogent arguments have been made that having a living rather than a subsistence wage would benefit our entire society. As pointed out by economist Jim Stanford, when people have some money to spare after paying for rent and food, they are likely to spend it, thereby stimulating the economy.

And of course, it is wise to remember that minimum wage jobs in this economy are no longer the domain of the poorly educated. Many university graduates, struggling to find their place in the world, are toiling in retail and service and other traditionally low-paying sectors.

The dean of social sciences at McMaster University in Hamilton, Charlotte Yates, observes that changes in Canada’s labour market are permanent – most notably a penchant for part-time and contract hiring – and are not a temporary blip.

Says Judith Maxwell, past chair of the Economic Council of Canada:

“People over their forties in Canada have no idea what it’s like for a young person trying to find a pathway to adulthood right now.”

Predictably, business is much more conservative and restrained on the question of minimum wage increases. Last week the Canadian Chamber of Commerce published a report, the most pertinent being the following conclusion based on a survey of its members:

In the survey of 1,207 members, 46 per cent said the minimum wage should rise with inflation.

Of course the main problem in tying any increases to inflation means that the workers would continue to live in poverty; they simply wouldn't sink any deeper, which to me is simply another way of ignoring the problem.

The poor have little voice in the formulation of government policy. The moral responsibility for change therefore resides with those of us who have had the good fortune to work productively and profitably throughout our lives; we need to add our voices to theirs and promote change. A letter to one's MPP would be a good start.

The Struggle For Dignity

All of us have a right to respect and dignity. Many of us do not receive it. Having been 'educated' in the Catholic system at a time when the application of both verbal and physical abuse was regarded as proper corrective methodology, I experienced many times in my younger life situations where respect and dignity were denied. I suspect it was one of those foundational experiences that has made me so acutely aware of various forms of injustice as an adult.

Countless people around the world are denied dignity, many of them within North America, the most prosperous part of our planet. Particularly vulnerable to debasement are minimum wage workers, many of whom toil in the fast food industry about which I have written previous posts.

Yesterday, thousands of fast-food workers in nearly 60 cities across the United States staged strikes to protest poor wages as they call for a doubling of the minimum wage from an average of $7.25 to $15 per hour.

Organizers of the action, Low Pay Is Not Ok, are also calling for the right to unionize without fear of retalaiation; one of the obstacles to unionization is the fact that many work in 'right-to-work-states' that make it optional to join unions and pay dues, even in unionized environments. It is a law that Ontario's would-be premier, the young Tim Hudak, salivates over and promises for those foolish enough to consider voting for him.

I encourage people to educate themselves on this issue, striking as it does at the very heart of respect, dignity, and the capacity to live a life at the very least slightly above the poverty line. Perhaps statistics put into perspective the denialism that is the reflexive reaction of the corporate world whenever there is any discussion of improving the wages of those who make possible their massive profits:

Workers want their hourly pay more than doubled from the minimum wage of $7.25 an hour to a more livable $15 an hour. Organizers of the rally say the top eight fast-food chains — McDonald’s, Wendy’s, Burger King, Taco Bell, KFC, Pizza Hut, Domino’s and Papa John’s — made $7.35 billion in profit last year, yet most of their employees didn’t make more than $11,200.

Seems doable to me and I imagine just about everyone else who believes in a little justice and equity for humanity.


* On a personal note, we are taking our Cuban friends to see Niagara Falls today, after which we will visit my sister-in-law in Niagara-On-The-Lake. If you post comments here, they will not appear until later today, when I have computer access at her place. I hope everyone enjoys the long weekend.