Originally Posted by maxdustington
I can't remember how the Ontario minimum wage increased, but it went up to $14 an hour I believe Jan 1, 2018? Cashiers dissapeared and prices went up immediately, people working those minimum wage jobs got their hours, breaks or benefits cut, etc. There was a big uproar when Tim Hortons cut some benefit that they gave their employees. A lot of full time minimum wage jobs were cut or turned into part time positions.
I think it has to do with high cost of living in major cities. In Ontario I think it had to do with the rapid rise in housing costs out stripping the availability of subsidized housing in Toronto. I heard recently that the wait list for subsidized housing in Toronto was 200000 names long. The article mentions that the movement started in Chicago, where cost of living would be the highest (I assume).
Raising minimum wage seems to only help employees who are valuable enough to not get their hours cut. I would argue that they could have negotiated a high wage or found a higher paying job anyway. I really think it has to do with maintaining a voting block of urban poor who can augment their hours getting cut with partial unemployment benefits and the ability to live in a large city with access to social services. In addition to social services, large cities also contain diasporas for the large amount of foreigners working those minimum wage jobs.
Um no... This didn't happen. There was fear mongering in the news about it but it was proven later that employment increased during this time by 10,000 jobs during the period the increase happened, I'm trying to find the article in the Toronto Star that quotes the stats. As for Tim Hortons, this was a handful of greedy owners and the other owners revolted against them because of it.
Ok I can't find the Toronto Star one but here is the same from Huff-Po:
https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2018/08/13/minimum-wage-hike-ontario-job-growth_a_23501349/
Quote
Many experts predicted that Ontario's hefty minimum wage hike to $14 an hour at the start of this year would harm the province's job creation.
TD Bank issued a study suggesting the move could cost the province some 90,000 jobs. Industry group Restaurants Canada warned the wage hike, along with other labour law reforms, would put 185,000 jobs at risk, including 17,000 in food services.
Some employers seemed to get downright nasty to their workers in the wake of the wage hike. Take, for instance, reports of some Tim Hortons franchisees cutting paid breaks and benefits for workers.
But six months later, there is no sign of the wage hike having negatively impacted job creation in Ontario. The province added some 60,000 jobs in July (though many of those were in the public sector) and its unemployment rate fell to 5.4 per cent, according to Statistics Canada data — the lowest rate in 18 years.