Globe and Mail - January 5/18   
      
      
   Alberta hasn’t suffered for raising the minimum wage   
      
   Raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour was a key plank in the Alberta NDP's   
   2015 election platform.   
      
   At $10.20 an hour, and $9.20 for employees serving liquor, Alberta's minimum   
   wage was tied for the lowest in Canada when Rachel Notley became Premier in   
   May, 2015, and the province had the dubious distinction of having the highest   
   level of income    
   inequality and the largest gender income gap.   
      
   Some Alberta workers were benefiting from a provincial economy that has for   
   years produced the highest average wage in the country, but the prosperity of   
   our province was not being enjoyed by everyone.   
      
   The new government wasted little time in announcing public consultations on   
   raising the minimum wage, and on Oct. 1, 2015, the provincial minimum wage was   
   increased by a dollar.  Further increases in 2016 and 2017 led to the current   
   rate of $13.60 and    
   eliminated the lower wage for workers who serve liquor.   
      
   On Oct. 1, 2018, the Alberta minimum wage will reach $15 an hour, a   
   47-per-cent increase over four years.  Any proposal to increase the minimum   
   wage by any amount in any province or territory seems to be met with dire   
   warnings of big job losses and    
   impending economic doom.   
      
   In Alberta, the government's actions have generated considerable public debate   
   and some bold predictions.   
      
   In 2015, the Canadian Federation of Independent Businesses (CFIB) claimed that   
   the minimum-wage increase would cost the province "between 53,500 and 195,000   
   jobs."  In other words, the CFIB believed that more than half of the almost   
   300,000 Alberta    
   workers making less than $15 an hour could lose their jobs.   
      
   In September, 2017, the C.D. Howe Institute released a study that claims,   
   "Alberta's move to increase its minimum wage to $15 an hour by [October] 2018   
   could lead to the loss of roughly 25,000 jobs."   
      
   These types of predictions simply aren't credible.   
      
   The problem for critics of minimum-wage increases is that history doesn't back   
   up their sky-is-falling claims.   
      
   In the year preceding November, 2017 (the latest available data), Alberta's   
   service sector added 12,400 jobs as part of our province's economic recovery.    
   In 2016, while Alberta's economy was still in recession, our service sector   
   added 26,500 jobs.   
      
   These jobs were created despite Alberta's minimum wage increasing 33 per cent   
   in 2015-17.   
      
   This reality follows smaller but still significant minimum-wage increases in   
   Alberta in 2007 (14 per cent), in Quebec in 2010 (12 per cent) and in British   
   Columbia in 2011-12 (28 per cent).  None of these cases resulted in major job   
   losses.   
      
   The main reason that the doom-and-gloom predictions from business lobby groups   
   and think tanks fail to materialize is because they assume that estimated   
   employment effects for teenagers apply to adult workers over the age of 20.    
   In reality, minimum-wage    
   increases tend to result in a small percentage of teens losing their jobs,   
   while estimated job losses for adult workers are effectively zero.   
      
   Alberta actually has a labour shortage at the low end of the wage scale that   
   is likely to continue for the next couple of years.  A higher minimum wage   
   will make these jobs more attractive.  There are, in fact, many benefits to   
   raising the minimum wage.     
      
   A minimum-wage increase is in effect a stimulus to the local economy because   
   low-income earners spend most of their income, and chiefly in their community.   
   Raising the minimum wage increases overall consumer spending power and the   
   amount of money    
   circulating in our economy.   
      
   Research published by ATB Financial in September, 2017 shows that restaurant   
   and bar receipts in Alberta are at an all-time high.  The claim being made by   
   some commentators that the Alberta economy is too weak right now to support a   
   further increase to    
   the minimum wage couldn't be further from the truth. Minimum-wage hikes also   
   reduce gender income inequality – 60 per cent of workers making less than   
   $15 an hour in Alberta are women.   
      
   Minimum-wage hikes don't hurt our economy; they help ensure more working   
   Albertans share in the prosperity of our province.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)