The Star compares the pay raises MPPs got with the 25 cent increase in the minimum wage. ⇒
4 January 2007, mid-morning
Also, the new URLs for the Toronto Star are much better.
This is a post from my link log: If you click the title of this post you will be taken the web page I am discussing.
The language is a little dramatic in that article. Obviously when you compare the MPP salaries to the minimum wage things look silly, but what about when they compare them to CEO’s, CFO’s, entertainers and other capitalists? Their salary looks stupidly small for the importance of their work. Surely many MPP’s come from money and the salary isn’t a big issue, but that may not always be the case for smart young politicians at the provincial level. Someone with a strong education and 10 years of experience should easily be making $150K in business or $100K otherwise.
by Victor on January 4 2007, 10:50 am #
I also thought bringing up the MPP pay hike when talking about minimum wage is a bit stupid. I guess it seems obnoxious because MPPs vote for their own raise, while most people don’t have that luxury. (MPPs have had their pay was frozen for a decade according to the article, so the sudden jump doesn’t seem too unreasonable. It works out to an annual pay raise over the last 10 years of 2.2 percent. Is that close to inflation?)
by ramanan on January 4 2007, 11:40 am #
I read a readers reply in The Metro today that made a fairly sensible plea for people to stop comparing apples with one armed tree sloths. The province need to make the MPP’s salaries comparable to their Ottawa brethren so that the largest province can retain the best talent. Would they like tax payers funds used to subsidize minimum wage? Do you want to see minimum wage increased to $10/h, with the most probable outcome being loss of jobs and inflated prices as small and medium sized companies cope to stay in the black? $10/h is useless if you can’t find a job. I bet that if either raise was a number other than 25 people wouldn’t have thought to compare them.
by stashuk on January 4 2007, 12:27 pm #