March 11, 2009
The NDP on Wages
Carole James used her weekend provincial council to once again promote her policies on minimum wage. The problem is that she continues to only tell half the story.
The fact is, our plan based on low taxes, high job creation and programs to help our most vulnerable has actually created nearly 375,000 new jobs and record-low unemployment rates for everyone including youth. Meanwhile, her scheme would put tens of thousands of people out of work and crush small business under new costs. Here are the facts:
- The average wage in B.C. today is over $22 an hour -- the third highest in Canada and two-and-a-half times the minimum wage. The average youth wage is over $13 an hour, one-and-a-half times the minimum wage.
- According to StatsCan, the number of people earning minimum wage is actually decreasing -- from 6 per cent in 2001 to 2.7 in 2008, the second lowest proportion in Canada. Nearly two-thirds of those individuals today are under the age of 25, and a very large number of those individuals attend school as well as work.
- Recent research suggests a 25 per cent increase to minimum wage as Carole James suggests could cost small business $450 million a year and result in the loss of up to 50,000 jobs at a time when our workers need more jobs, not less.
- Finally, Carole James conveniently forgets that she voted against tax relief and new programs that actually give money BACK to our lowest income families, including:
- Multiple reductions to personal income taxes, making them the lowest in B.C. for everyone earning up to $116,000, with 250,000 of the lowest income earners now paying no income taxes at all. For a family of four earning $30,000 a year, that's nearly $1,000 a year in savings.
- Changes to MSP premiums now means that 215,000 families have their premiums reduced from 2001 levels, and Fair Pharmacare lowered costs for 280,000 people, saving lower-income families hundreds of dollars a year.
- The new Rental Supplement Program is giving rental subsidies to over 7,700 families of up to $765 a month for a lower-income family of four (nearly $9,200 a year) -- a program that the NDP rejected as "a gift to landlords."
- Enhancements to programs such as the childcare subsidy, where a single parent of two kids under age 6 earning up to $38,000 a year will see their annual subsidy double to over $14,200 a year (a nearly $7,000 a year increase)
The bottom line -- Carole James's plan will undo all of our progress that has actually put MORE money into people’s pockets, while also putting unsustainable new costs on small business that will kill jobs. That’s simply reckless and irresponsible.
