Don’t Tolerate Ignorance About the Minimum Wage


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Now, stop tolerating ignorance! And smile, TGIF.

Hello.

It’s Friday.

For many people it’s TGIF. But for many people who aren’t even teenagers, the work week isn’t ending today.

We often THINK minimum wage is for the new entries to the job market. Maybe it was one day. Maybe just for one day.

But today? If it isn’t a living wage, it’s exploitative.

And if it is just minimum wage, we are likely not too accurate on who is suffering with these low wages.

Let’s take a peek:

It is not the stereotypical pothead living in their parents’ basement.

It is not the apathetic, lethargic kid who doesn’t demonstrate some profound work ethic.

In the USA, “88 Percent of Workers Who Would Benefit From a Higher Minimum Wage Are Older Than 20, One Third Are Over 40.”

In Ontario, “Between 2003 and 2011, the share of employees working for minimum wage has more than doubled from 4.3 to 9 percent.” Increasing the minimum wage to a living wage will not cripple the economy and negate gravity. Please.

Also In Ontario, “the share of racialized employees at minimum wage is 47 percent higher than for the total population,” and 19.1% of recent immigrants are at minimum wage. And almost 40% of people on minimum wage are over 25.

So.

Go back up to the top here and click on that fancy infographic to confront your own prejudices. Did you have to correct any ignorance?

If yes, that’s awesome. If not, that’s awesome too. Either way, memorize that infographic so the next time anyone spouts some pathetic ignorance or self-serving poor-bashing, you can correct their incorrect facts.

And to end, click on this infographic below to see some more inspiration for how you can combat the insipid poor-bashing that skulks around us all.

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Stephen Elliott-Buckley

Post-partisan eco-socialist. at Politics, Re-Spun
Stephen Elliott-Buckley is a husband, father, professor, speaker, consultant, former suburban Vancouver high school English and Social Studies teacher who changed careers because the BC Liberal Party has been working hard to ruin public education. He has various English and Political Science degrees and has been writing political, social and economic editorials since November 2002. Stephen is in Twitter, Miro and iTunes, and the email thing, and at his website, dgiVista.org.

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