I would have been an NDP supporter, except for one thing: Wages are raised, without regard to whether the employer can pay them or not.

Do people not understand, when the minimum wage is raised too high, employers cannot pay it without raising prices, which means less people shop at their store. When employers cannot pay the minimum wage, the number of employees need to be scaled back, or the amount of hours need to be scaled back or the business has to fold. If any of the above happen the employee is making the same, but if the business folds, what good is that? The employee wage is high, but the likelihood of him/her getting a job is vastly reduced.

To be fair to employees and employers, whether the employer can pay the increased minimum wage without raising prices, has to be taken into consideration. If the employer cannot pay the minimum wage, then the pay of employees has to be reduced, not raised. Almost twice as many people would be working at $8 an hour than are working for $15 per hour. More people could be working if the minimum wage was less.

Nobody is the champion of the working man, when the minimum wage is so high the working man is not working. If the cost of government employees was less, with some reductions right across the board, to bring the cost of government down and therefore, inflation down, this would help persons to have jobs at a lower minimum wage.

Judy Whytock

Esquimalt