Vancouver Metro October 2, 2015
This morning, I stumbled across an article in the paper, “Debate over minimum wage rages on campaign trail.” The article reminded me of my friend Chris’ blog and I decided to write about it.
Upon reading Chris’ blog about increasing minimum wage and the repercussions that could come along with it, I found myself agreeing with his arguments, but disagreeing with his general statement that, “Society as a whole would not benefit from this increase.” I agree with Chris that businesses will have to start laying off employees due to the increase in variable costs, and that the demand for minimum wage jobs would increase. However, I believe that there are more benefits for the individual worker and society than not.
Individuals that receive a higher wage are able to live on it and save it for the future. An increase in wages leads to a healthier lifestyle, as people tend to stray away from unhealthy, cheap and fast foods. This results in a lesser of a burden on our health care system. The standard of living also improves as people would be able to afford better housing and living areas. But in the end, one should not be too quick to say that and increase in minimum wage is good or bad as we do need to weigh the economic benefits of doing so.
sources:
http://blogs.ubc.ca/christopherserban/2015/10/01/walmart-workers-demand-minimum-wage-increase/
http://www.metronews.ca/news/canada/2015/10/02/debate-over-minimum-wage-rages-on-campaign-trail.html