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LETTER: Higher wages not the solution

To the Editor ,
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To the Editor,

People think they deserve $15/hour wages? Meet their replacement.

Changes have been made in Europe, the U.S. and already started in Canada, soon to be at every McDonald’s locations in Canada.

Fifteen dollars per hour times eight hours equals $120 per day; times five days a week, equals $600 per week. Multiply that by 52weeks and that equals $31,200 per year. This does include the 30 per cent that the employer has to pay for added employee benefits.

Of course when this happens, like it did in Los Angeles, poor and unskilled workers will go on welfare and cost the working population more money to support them.

McDonald’s recently came out with their answer to those that want $15 per hour pay: they hired 7,000 touch screen cashiers which can produce one burger every 10 seconds. You the customer now do your own food order.

It is a win win situation. McDonald’s profits go up and the customers stay happy because menu prices stay the same, whereas paying the $15/hour decreases McDonald’s profits and the customers are now unhappy because the menu prices went up.

It’s a sign of the times. Self-serve banking, self-serve checkouts at big box stores, and now self-serve ordering your meals at McDonald’s.

The rule of thumb is that an increase in the minimum wage creates unemployment. Just ask a small business owner, as they have to increase their prices on to the consumer to cover the increase. The majority of supporters of minimum wage increases are not willing to pay new menu prices. Fail to realize that in this world, you cannot have your cake and eat it too.

Millionaires like Warren Buffet say that an increase in the minimum wage is a bad idea because the real outcome of the increase is that employees will be walking into the doors of their local unemployment office.

Joe Sawchuk,

Duncan