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Forums - General Discussion - Lower wages = Lower unemployment benefits

Kasz216 on 20 March 2011
Joelcool7 said:
Kasz216 said:
Joelcool7 said:
Kasz216 said:
 


I live in poverty level here in British Columbia. Trust me with the highest cost of food and other things in the country. A few extra dollars may not be enough to lift people completely out of poverty but it will certainly allow them to buy more food and live better.

Its natural progression. If minimum wages never rose we'd still be at 10cents an hour like right before WWII. But as costs of food, electricity, housing etc...etc.. rose it was nescessary to increase the minimum wage. If we didn't who could have survived or lived a decent living?

With higher cost of living, minimum wages have to go up. I myself worked a minimum wage job before loosing work. I was barely able to pay my bills I made like 1K a month and paid 650$ rent, food, phone, internet , cable. I could barely afford anything. Now I'm on welfare and I get 900$ a month, but live with my dad again and pay 325$ a month rent etc...etc...

Long story short when you make almost as much on welfare as you do a minimum wage job, their is a serious problem. Especially when welfare barely covers your basic living expenses, my rent goes up by 25$ a month each year now, with rising fuel costs I had to give up on learning how to drive as I couldn't afford to buy a car, let alone pay the 250$ insurance a month (I had an accident) or the high fuel.

Basically if their is no pay increase and I did not have my dad to move in with. I would be on the streets today, or very close. Now I live in one of the poorest parts of my city, I live in a run down bug infested apartment. And it is going to cost 700$ a month to live here in a year.

Now yes I still buy video games, I use a credit card and get into further debt. I try paying it off when I find work but lets be honest at 8$ an hour and in current living prices, its almost easier to not have a job at all.

So yes a raise in minimum wage would help me alot. It would increase my quality of life. Now yes I am way below the poverty line and an increase won't be enough to get me across the line, but it will certainly make life easier.

If the prices of everything around you keep going higher, how can anyone survive if the pay doesn't go up with it?

Also I don't feel sorry for the big corporations that will have to pay alittle higher. Now yes in this economy it is still hard to find work. But if its cheaper to live on income assistance then work a job because a full time job will pay you barely enough to survive. Then yah the wages need to go up!

If you raise the cost of minium wage, you raise the cost of products, which means that they have to raise welfare is why it really  doesn't help.

If you raise the minium wage, chances are the prices will just raise to match it.


Well the costs of living in my area are second highest in the country. Something needs to happen costs keep going higher and if wages don't increase even those with full time jobs can't survive. Raising the minimum wage is the only solution I see.

Do you have any idea how the situation could be improved without pay raises? I think the Government could cut taxes as they are also some of the highest in the country, raising even higher thanks to the Olympics. But even if taxes were to be cut I still can't see the situation getting any better.

Also with my province having had the lowest minimum wage in the country, it also is the second highest cost of living. When compared to other provinces with higher minimum wages. If the cost of living keeps rising and something isn't done quickly for the people a ton more people will become homeless. I know someone working three jobs and still only making 2k a month (A decent living I guess) barely above poverty line. He told me his schedule he gets up at 5:30 to go to work at 6!. He works till 2PM, he then goes often to his next job for a shift untill 10, then many times a third job bouncing for a club from 11-3AM. He gets two hours sleep and its back to work.

Now of course he doesn't work that every day, but he told me that thats how several days of the week look for him. Yet he barely makes over 2k some months I think the most he said he was ever paid was like 3K in a month. Working those kinds of hours.

Any idea what could be done other then wage increases to help people survive?

There are people who live like that everywhere... it's sad but i know a lot of people who live like that.

as for lowering cost of living taxes is the big way actually. If you try and stay tax nuetral, a way to do it would be to increase the tax credit (amount you get before being taxed) and inceasing taxes elsewhere.

Your buying of videogames illustrates the tricky part though... as the poor buy a lot of things that are taxed highly.

Like Cigarettes and such.

Encouraging deflation works too... though governments actually like it when peoples prices go up.  Specifically creating better transportation so that people can live in cheaper areas then migrate to their jobs via public transportation is a third option.

Either way, just doing something to do something isn't going to help, and may make things work.