NDP broke and busted 2

And our little dog, Toto, too! Hold the line! Luv isnt always on time whoa whoa whoaooo

Thread started out fine with the introduciton of some facts figures and calculations. That was worth discussing. Most of what followed was not.

I would very much like to see some kind of summary put forward about how the $10 minimum wage fits in with a comprehensive relief packege for people in TORONTO, and how the NDP comes to the conclusion that a 10 wage amounts to a meaningful contribution to the city, based in an analysis of the economics of Toronto. I maintain that $10 does not effectively address the problem and that it does not amount to a meaningful increase of the labour market standard as it presently exists.

oops I did it again

And since this is a forum for Canadian Politics , we should take the opportunity to squeel on repressive old line parties at both levels of government!

[url=http://www2.canada.com/windsorstar/news/letters/story.html?id=d58c64d7-4... sales tax hits seniors[/url]

Quote:

 I have looked at the income tax returns I prepared for seniors for 2008 and have concluded the people who can least afford it are going to be hit hardest.
Two of my clients had incomes of $14,755.26 and that included the federal Guaranteed Income Supplement and the Ontario Social Assistance payment, well below the poverty line. Both governments should be ashamed of themselves for expecting any senior to survive on this income.
I have many other clients, who are single seniors and whose incomes are below $18,000 which, because it is considered below the poverty level for Ontario, means they do not pay income taxes. As a result, the reduction in the Ontario income tax rate does not give them any benefit.

 For qualifying single seniors, the proposed increase in the sales tax rebate will give them an extra $160 each year and the increase in the property tax credit will, in most cases, add an amount ranging between $80 to $200 for a maximum increase of $360 in provincial tax credits. This leaves most with yearly increases in costs of up to $500 due to the HST.

Rexdale_Punjabi wrote:

edit- Always wondered why it so low Fidel I know seniors who show they divorced so each get the 10-12k they would get n pool it together still aint shit but u know gotta make somethin outa nothin. I know one who the guy never worked in canada he get like 11k I think and the women did officialy so she gets like 16-18k cant remember exact so u know they pool it together.

That's sort of the way it works, R_P. There are thousands of seniors in Canada who qualify for something called old age supplementary income from the feds but never even apply for it. And the feds dont give it to them automatically. Old age supplementary is for seniors whose incomes are anywhere below some level - I think it's around $15,000. Below that they dont pay income tax. Old age supplementary could mean something like an additional four or five thousand dollars a year(or whatever the individual case may be) in income for thousands of older Canadians. And they never apply to the feds for it. Many dont know about it. And I think in some cases, they naturally think their income is too high for them to qualify for any income assistance.

And then there is the opportunity for income splitting. For instance, a senior male of of the household is of age to collect Canada Pension(he's 65 or older). All of his pensions combined give him, say, $20,000 a year in retirement. And his wife is under 60 years of age, doesnt work and has no income and is not working as part of the same example. She can declare half of his income to the feds as well as use tax credits available to her by virtue of having an income to declare. The husband declares the other half and would then qualify for OAS supplementary income, which will be about another $3000 dollars per year from the feds. And I think, but dont quote me, that the wife could also receive a spouse's allowance from the feds worth something like $225 a month.

Fidel wrote:

Well you still havent produced your economic analysis for Toronto. And the ONDP is calling for [url=http://ontariondp.com/11-11-dinovo-bill-raises-minimum-wage-poverty-line]$10.50/hr to-day[/url] and $11 by 2011, and they are calling for more than just a pay raise for the economic serfs in Liberal Ontario.

Heh. So there isn't a plan. Just this throw away "raise" the minimum raise pseudo populist stunt. Bull.

What about an integrated relief plan? Including rent control, a raise in the welfare rate, and real increase in wages.

You seem to talk a lot about something that you know nothing about apparently. You don't live here, you don't vote here, and when questioned you don't know the answers. Not that any of that stops you from talking about stuff you know nothing about.

So, I checked the web site, and discovered that there is nothing other than the supposed wage increase, which isnt really a wage increase. Other than that, there is not comprehensive outline of a poverty action plan. There isn't even a "poverty committee" even in the ONDP, apparently.

Its not suprising you hold the view that you do. You don't live here, and the NDP hasn't published any figures to back up their policy to show how it would work. Not suprisingly because any detailed analysis of the economy in Toronto will reveal that $10 before taxes is about as low as wages go already, unless people are supplementing their income elsewhere.

This $10 an hour thing is just some flypaper the NDP through at the wall in the hope that it would stick. It didn't.

Announcing anything more than $10.00/hr as an NDP plank doesn't serve any purpose.  Why scare the business community and the corporations when instead they could just toss out something that is meaningless, essentially table scraps in comparitive reality with a benchmark that has already been surpassed for the most part.  Even the call centers down here in the rural economic backwaters where I live are paying between 9.50 and 12.00/hr.  Tell me again about the NDP's pro-worker, anti-poverty policies?

As we can see in this handy chart, the average wage in almost all occupations listed in the Toronto/York Region area is already above $10 an hour, with the notable exceptions of the service industry where workers expect tips.

CITY of Toronto Wages

So, a $10 minimum is not going to raise the average wage, or even affect the lowest paid workers that much, since in the great majority of cases, even the lowest paid are already in the $10 an hour ballpark.

The two categories of workers that would benefit the most are Cashiers and Service Station attendants, who would see their average wage go up by a buck fourty.

What would impact the market, and drive up labour rates is increased welfare rate, which will put preassure on the market. Setting the minimum wage to below the already existing standard wage, will simply flatten out the bottom of wage curve for a small section of people.

You are hilarious. Those are the numbers derived from samples of EI benefit claims. In other words it is revenue Canada data. But' you'll say anything no matter how insane, and unfounded, just as long as you think it sounds good. You sure you aren't some Liberal guy who comes here to make the NDP rank and file look like dishonest and craven idiots, who will sell any bullshit they think will sell?

Quote:

The information is derived from an anonymous sample of Employmet Insurance claim data. No personal information of any client was made available or transmitted. Claim data is from the Toronto/York area and was administratively collected during 2005. Some occupational groups are not shown due to having insufficient numbers which seriously affected the accuracy of their wage estimates.

And there was some mention of the min wage rate increasing to $8 dollars an hour. And that was when the neoliberal shitshow economy was still hobbling along somewhat before the big swan dive.

What youre looking for is a report from the feds describing actual mean and even median incomes in Toronto as declared on all personal and business income tax claims, and which may be broken down by quintiles, quartiles etc or even by family incomes. What you posted up there is gibberish. It's a rough guide for wages of skilled and semi-skilled workers and doesnt even list all of those.

I think at some point you should ask yourself if you plan on being full of shit the rest of your life, or will you decide to put some effort into bullshitting social democrats like myself. We might even take you seriously.

Quote:

In Toronto a single person must earn more than $14/hr to afford an average rent bachelor while a family needs a combined income of almost $25/hr, more than three times the average wage.

Minimum Housing Wage 2006

Benjamin wrote:

Fidel wrote:

I think at some point you should ask yourself if you plan on being full of shit the rest of your life, or will you decide to put some effort into bullshitting social democrats like myself. We might even take you seriously.

I think at some point you should respond to the objective facts put in front of your face rather than resorting to rhetoric and swearing.

The numbers were shown to you that in Toronto, the average worker, even in low-paid service sector jobs, earns more than $10/hour.  The numbers were shown to you that in Toronto, a $10/hour wage would be ineffective in providing adequate housing.  This is not to say that some people in Toronto make less than $10/hour (obviously some do), but the objective facts suggest that a $10/hour minimum wage would be functionally meaningless to workers in Toronto.

Systemic social change will not be achieved with minor tinkering and throw away policies.  A $10 minimum wage, or $11 wage, absent a coherent poverty policy framework with respect to housing, social assistance, employment standards, and taxation, will simply not result in major social justice gains.

Or minors ones.

So what youre saying really is that Pinocchio's Liberal government continues to fail poor people in Ontario from just about every angle possible including the miserably low minimum wage rate.

Quote:

On April 26, 2009, CCPA Manitoba released a comprehensive document ([i]The View From Here: Manitobans call for a poverty reduction plan[/i]) calling on the Manitoba government to make poverty reduction a core component of economic and social policies in Manitoba. Such a plan would make Manitoba a leader in the implementation of a vision to address the needs and aspirations of our citizens in the 21st century.

Amongst other things, the plan proposes that the province adopt an active labour market policy that includes changes in legislation to promote the formation of trade unions, improvements in employment standards, and continued increases in the minimum wage. [...]

At present, a full-time, full-year minimum wage worker earns $ 17,062.50 per year. The 25 cent increase October 1 will bump annual earnings to $17,750.00. However, even with this increase, annual earnings will fall short of the before-tax Low-Income Cut-Off of $21,866 for a single person by $4,116. The implication of this unacceptable shortfall is that [b]the provincial government needs to accelerate increases to the minimum wage to lift the tens of thousands of workers to $11.20 an hour[/b] associated with the $21,866 low-income cut-off.

[url=http://www.policyalternatives.ca/~ASSETS/DOCUMENT/Manitoba_Pubs/FF_impro... Centre for Policy Alternatives - Manitoba Office[/color][/url]

Here is another example of your off-topic rambling:

Fidel wrote:

Are there Filippina nannies being paid $3.71 an hour by well-known Liberal MP's to clean chiropractic clinics and do other skivvy work in Toronto or arent there?

Why are you people going out of your way to insulate a bunch of Liberal Party hypocrites from blame in this northern Puerto Rico? The UN says min wage and welfare rates in Liberal Ontario are a violation of basic human rights. If you people want to argue with UN officials about poverty in Ontario, then please, step up to the plate. But please dont try to bullshit any one NDP'er at a given time. Because where there is one social democrat, any and all apologists for the old line party setup in this country will always be outnumbered I'm afraid. Talk crap to a social democrat anywhere, and youre going to be yelled at and mocked and told what's up straight up.

The issue of people working illegally is entirely off topic, and urelated to the issue of government enforced minimum wage for legal employment. Its actually pretty clear that you don't really care about exploited workers, other than as a tool scoring cheap voter brownie points, as can be seen by your off-topic ramblings, insults and smear jobs.

Cueball wrote:

Here is another example of your off-topic rambling:

Fidel wrote:

Are there Filippina nannies being paid $3.71 an hour by well-known Liberal MP's to clean chiropractic clinics and do other skivvy work in Toronto or arent there?

Why are you people going out of your way to insulate a bunch of Liberal Party hypocrites from blame in this northern Puerto Rico? The UN says min wage and welfare rates in Liberal Ontario are a violation of basic human rights. If you people want to argue with UN officials about poverty in Ontario, then please, step up to the plate. But please dont try to bullshit any one NDP'er at a given time. Because where there is one social democrat, any and all apologists for the old line party setup in this country will always be outnumbered I'm afraid. Talk crap to a social democrat anywhere, and youre going to be yelled at and mocked and told what's up straight up.

The issue of people working illegally is entirely off topic, and urelated to the issue of government enforced minimum wage for legal employment. Its actually pretty clear that you don't really care about exploited workers, other than as a tool scoring cheap voter brownie points, as can be seen by your off-topic ramblings, insults and smear jobs.

But that was Liberal MP Ruby Dhalla. Are you saying she broke the law in Ontario?

How do you reconcile this with your Liberal Party bullshit about there being no low wage workers or persistent poverty in Toronto or Liberal Ontario as a whole?

I can see now why the smear job on the NDP suggesting wrongly and falsely that they are focussed only on raising minimum wage rates. There should be other measures designed specifically to deal with Liberal MP's who sidestep the system when hiring slave wage workers in Toronto.

oops I did it again, yeah baby

Cueball wrote:

Everyone else is supplementing their income. Supplementing could be anything from dealing, to scaming welfare, working 20 hours a week above 40 hours and so on. Otherwise they are sharing rent with friends, GF/BF, living with family or otherwise.

This amounts to poor bashing Mike the Knife style, and I'm flagging it. Liberal, Tory, theyre the same fuckin' party.

Whether it occurs in even a few cases or not, it's poor bashing Mike Harris style. Youre painting welfare recipients in Liberal Ontario with a wide neocon brush, and it has no place on a progressive forum. Studies have shown that very few people "scam" the bloated welfare bureaucracy still in place since Mike Harris. Youre full of shit as usual.

Liberal, Tory, theyre the same fuckin party. And if you want to refer to me as dude, I'll just refer to you as I think you deserve in kind, ie. piece of shit old line party shill

Rexdale_Punjabi wrote:

on that tho they charge u to call the ambulance now cuz ppl used to get off work, call the ambuclance go to waiting n they used to have food n diapers there they would get full change they babies diaper n when the doctor said there nothin wrong with u they would say aii im gone then lol U gotta do what u gotta do but I c u cueball n it tru still u cant raise a family on welfare or minimum wage.

 

so u know in reality the effective minimum wage aint 10 aint even the average either u know but yea we strugglin hard.

 

most ppl dont scam welfare still n the ones that you could say do along with other stuff I dont even call it scamming cuz working 60 hours a week aint illegal or scamming n if shit is "illegal" it aint cuz it wrong it because anything the working class does to try n make ends meet is considered wrong.

The system is rigged, and the biggest issue is the welfare rate. Raising it will push the market value of labour up. Minimum wage, will just flatten the statistic at the low end of the scale.

"Scamming" is a great Canadian tradition of those who know they are getting fucked. The system is so screwed up now that people are forced to work under the table, so they can get by on welfare. Anyone who is on the edge of starvation has the right to scam. It's fucking duty.