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Minimum wages and universal basic income
#1
(04-15-2020, 04:14 PM)ac3r Wrote: If these privately operated paid their staff more money, they wouldn't be forced to be working multiple jobs. They easily could, too, because these places rake in money as it costs a lot to be able to live in one. Unfortunately, low wages have resulted in workers juggling two or more jobs to pay the bills and that has resulted in so much death from Covid-19.

Money is one part. Additionally some long-term care facilities only offer part-time employment, as that saves them benefit costs.

Maybe the province could mandate specific minimum wages for long-term care facility staff -- and provide additional subsidies to make this possible.
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#2
(04-15-2020, 09:55 PM)tomh009 Wrote: Maybe the province could mandate specific minimum wages for long-term care facility staff -- and provide additional subsidies to make this possible.

Honestly, I’d rather just institute a guaranteed annual income. The fundamental problem here is that the free market promise of willing buyers and sellers doesn’t work when you have a large population of people who absolutely need their job in order to survive — it is difficult or impossible for them to leave a job because of bad working conditions. If there was a guaranteed annual income, these people would be much more able to leave and would therefore have more bargaining power.

This is better than complicated detailed mandates on issues such as pay, scheduling, overtime, and on and on, repeated separately for each industry that attracts public attention. You probably wouldn’t even need a minimum wage, and the weird exceptions (teens, certain jobs, interns, volunteer positions, …) that go with it.

Of course, if our nursing home workers could quit and take the guaranteed annual income, their wages would have to go up, which would obviously increase the cost of long-term care. But we could then have an adult conversation about how to pay for that, rather than continually squeezing the caregivers.
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#3
(04-16-2020, 10:26 AM)ijmorlan Wrote:
(04-15-2020, 09:55 PM)tomh009 Wrote: Maybe the province could mandate specific minimum wages for long-term care facility staff -- and provide additional subsidies to make this possible.

Honestly, I’d rather just institute a guaranteed annual income. The fundamental problem here is that the free market promise of willing buyers and sellers doesn’t work when you have a large population of people who absolutely need their job in order to survive — it is difficult or impossible for them to leave a job because of bad working conditions. If there was a guaranteed annual income, these people would be much more able to leave and would therefore have more bargaining power.

Sure, yes, there would be significant advantages to that. But any kind of universal guaranteed income would be a much, much, much bigger change and far more challenging to get approved (and funded).

Increasing the pay of LTC staff is something that Ford could easily implement, especially given the LTC issues we have been seeing now.
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#4
Effectively the CERB is a guaranteed basic income and I'm hoping that as the government expands eligibility they realize that this is a good idea and it becomes a permanent universal policy. GST was only supposed to be a temporary measure, after all.
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#5
(04-16-2020, 10:56 AM)jamincan Wrote: Effectively the CERB is a guaranteed basic income and I'm hoping that as the government expands eligibility they realize that this is a good idea and it becomes a permanent universal policy. GST was only supposed to be a temporary measure, after all.

I believe you're thinking of income tax, which was introduced as a temporary measure during the first world war.

GST replaced MST (Manufacturers' Sales Tax) and was always intended as a permanent measure.
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#6
(04-15-2020, 05:27 PM)ijmorlan Wrote:
(04-15-2020, 04:14 PM)ac3r Wrote: If these privately operated paid their staff more money, they wouldn't be forced to be working multiple jobs. They easily could, too, because these places rake in money as it costs a lot to be able to live in one. Unfortunately, low wages have resulted in workers juggling two or more jobs to pay the bills and that has resulted in so much death from Covid-19.

Do you happen to know what are typical hours? I mean are they working 2 or 3 jobs at 15 hours each to get something like full time, or are they basically working multiple full-time jobs?

If they are stringing together multiple part-time jobs then allowing each to hold only a single job is an obvious way of improving the situation and probably should have been the rule all along. Each employee will have to pick where they want to stay, then wherever they stop working pretty much needs to increase the hours of another employee to make it up. Roughly speaking, they should each end up with a single full-time job.

Multiple part-time has become common, as it allows employers to stiff their workers on benefits.  It's something that the Province needs to address.
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#7
(04-16-2020, 10:56 AM)jamincan Wrote: Effectively the CERB is a guaranteed basic income and I'm hoping that as the government expands eligibility they realize that this is a good idea and it becomes a permanent universal policy. GST was only supposed to be a temporary measure, after all.
If we were to move to a UBI, I suspect it would be much less generous than the CERB.  Probably similar to what people get under Ontario Works (you don't want to know, it's pretty grim).
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#8
(04-16-2020, 10:50 AM)tomh009 Wrote:
(04-16-2020, 10:26 AM)ijmorlan Wrote: Honestly, I’d rather just institute a guaranteed annual income. The fundamental problem here is that the free market promise of willing buyers and sellers doesn’t work when you have a large population of people who absolutely need their job in order to survive — it is difficult or impossible for them to leave a job because of bad working conditions. If there was a guaranteed annual income, these people would be much more able to leave and would therefore have more bargaining power.

Sure, yes, there would be significant advantages to that. But any kind of universal guaranteed income would be a much, much, much bigger change and far more challenging to get approved (and funded).

Increasing the pay of LTC staff is something that Ford could easily implement, especially given the LTC issues we have been seeing now.

Could he? They're private as far as I understand, so it's also a pretty big change to require private employers to pay more, or have different standards.

That being said, UBI is already being implemented in other countries....now is the time for radical change.
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#9
(04-16-2020, 11:59 AM)panamaniac Wrote:
(04-15-2020, 05:27 PM)ijmorlan Wrote: Do you happen to know what are typical hours? I mean are they working 2 or 3 jobs at 15 hours each to get something like full time, or are they basically working multiple full-time jobs?

If they are stringing together multiple part-time jobs then allowing each to hold only a single job is an obvious way of improving the situation and probably should have been the rule all along. Each employee will have to pick where they want to stay, then wherever they stop working pretty much needs to increase the hours of another employee to make it up. Roughly speaking, they should each end up with a single full-time job.

Multiple part-time has become common, as it allows employers to stiff their workers on benefits.  It's something that the Province needs to address.

Why? Why shouldn't we instead address it by socializing all benefits including a minimum income?
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#10
(04-16-2020, 12:02 PM)panamaniac Wrote:
(04-16-2020, 10:56 AM)jamincan Wrote: Effectively the CERB is a guaranteed basic income and I'm hoping that as the government expands eligibility they realize that this is a good idea and it becomes a permanent universal policy. GST was only supposed to be a temporary measure, after all.
If we were to move to a UBI, I suspect it would be much less generous than the CERB.  Probably similar to what people get under Ontario Works (you don't want to know, it's pretty grim).

This is probably the case.

I will make an argument for having OW and CERB different. Any long term benefit can sustain someone on a lower budget than a short term benefit. I can cut my costs if I need to, but first, that does take time, and second, that's not something we actually want people to do when we are just making a financing bridge over an economic recession.

When it comes to a basic income, that's a long term benefit, and being lower than a short term bridge does make sense.

In terms of the absolute amounts, obviously up for discussion, and I have no doubt that living on OW is extremely difficult.
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#11
(04-16-2020, 12:07 PM)danbrotherston Wrote:
(04-16-2020, 11:59 AM)panamaniac Wrote: Multiple part-time has become common, as it allows employers to stiff their workers on benefits.  It's something that the Province needs to address.

Why? Why shouldn't we instead address it by socializing all benefits including a minimum income?

(04-16-2020, 12:11 PM)danbrotherston Wrote:
(04-16-2020, 12:02 PM)panamaniac Wrote: If we were to move to a UBI, I suspect it would be much less generous than the CERB.  Probably similar to what people get under Ontario Works (you don't want to know, it's pretty grim).

This is probably the case.

I will make an argument for having OW and CERB different. Any long term benefit can sustain someone on a lower budget than a short term benefit. I can cut my costs if I need to, but first, that does take time, and second, that's not something we actually want people to do when we are just making a financing bridge over an economic recession.

When it comes to a basic income, that's a long term benefit, and being lower than a short term bridge does make sense.

In terms of the absolute amounts, obviously up for discussion, and I have no doubt that living on OW is extremely difficult.

To be fair, if you've got access to a food bank, you won't starve and may even avoid malnutrition, if you're lucky ....
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#12
(04-16-2020, 10:56 AM)jamincan Wrote: GST was only supposed to be a temporary measure, after all.

Cite?

I understand the income tax was originally sold as temporary but I’m not aware that was ever suggested for the GST. It replaced the manufacturer’s sales tax.
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#13
I think I got confused with the Liberal opposition to the GST and then later keeping it on. Regardless, a UBI would be a good policy to come out of this, if it does.
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#14
(04-16-2020, 12:06 PM)danbrotherston Wrote:
(04-16-2020, 10:50 AM)tomh009 Wrote: Increasing the pay of LTC staff is something that Ford could easily implement, especially given the LTC issues we have been seeing now.

Could he? They're private as far as I understand, so it's also a pretty big change to require private employers to pay more, or have different standards.

The provincial government has the right to set minimum wages, and they can do it for specialized categories, too (such as "wilderness guides").
https://www.ontario.ca/document/your-gui...nimum-wage
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#15
(04-16-2020, 02:59 PM)tomh009 Wrote:
(04-16-2020, 12:06 PM)danbrotherston Wrote: Could he? They're private as far as I understand, so it's also a pretty big change to require private employers to pay more, or have different standards.

The provincial government has the right to set minimum wages, and they can do it for specialized categories, too (such as "wilderness guides").
https://www.ontario.ca/document/your-gui...nimum-wage

That specific category is kind of surprising but I've heard that, in the US, wilderness guide wages are quite paltry (like other categories they basically depend on tips).
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