Quest4Less said:
With all the talk in various posts about unions and private sectors and 'bad times' I thought I would ask - what is fair about the pay some people make?
What is a fair wage for unskilled work - be it picking up garbage, or screwing in a nut on an assembly line?
Is it right that people that risk their lives (police, fire, ambulance etc...) are paid so low?
Should teachers - who help shape future lives be paid more?
How is it a good thing that a sports person (pick your sport) - makes MILLIONS for playing a game???
No one ever thinks they make enough - but what is really 'enough'??
Assuming you're not a market fundamentalist or someone like that, there's a basic social compact that should be observed. The basic deal is this, that if you work and honest week you deserve a decent life, and if you do that for most of your life you deserve to be able to retire in something other than poverty. If you're in a monogamous relationship and both of you engage in the above you should be able to have a couple of offspring that are able to have a fair shot at whatever future they can make.
Societies that grievously offend that basic notion tend to be more long term self destructive than not. From a policy POV, that means having a 'quality of life floor' and fostering and environment with lower inequality while minimizing the most crass forms of direct redistribution. Cultural factors can help or hinder that... In the case of Canada we tend to sit in the top quintile (1/5th) on those sorts of counts so we basically 'do OK' as it is.
The most problematic area in Toronto is the retail segment of the service sector (Which employs 12% of Canadians) and in the case of Toronto that labour is disproportionately drawn from 'new Canadians', which hides the ghastly sort of life you have when engages in that sort of work for 10/hr (especially you you have dependants). 10/hr works out to roughly 20 K a year, and Toronto's shittiest basement apartment will still cost you $7200 a year (give or take). Throw on a dependant or two and no partner and you're done. In 2005, about 19% of workers made less than 10/hr, and about half of those were over 25. That's just too low for and adult wage.
About the minimum for a single person in Toronto should be about 11.50 /hr (round abouts 24K). For dual income, you get a little bit of an economy of scale. Say, $10.25 /hr per person (abouts 43 K). If you want kid's that have futures, that'll cost you $4 /hr per kid (8 K give or take). So if you have a family of 4 you better be able to scrape up $28.50 /hr (or the better part of 60K) amongst the adults or you're going to be living in a world of hurt. The above does precious little to provision for retirement (beyond hoping your kids do OK) or somebody having bad teeth.
edit: That doesn't really say specifically what 'fair' is... 'Fair' for a floor, would be say the statistical average of the above, say round abouts $12.75 /hr, as an absolute floor (maybe moderated if you get gratuities or have the word teen in your name) in Toronto. You could probably lump Ottawa and the non-gta bits of Southern Ontario into another column, and Northern Ontario as a 3rd.
