New Canadian Research Suggests Minimum Wage Increases Disproportionately Affect Immigrants

For our American readers, Ontario is kind of like California. The governing Liberal Party spends like Democrats, and also shares many of the same batty ideas regarding social policy.

Recently, just like in Seattle, Ontario passed an arbitrary $15 an hour minimum wage law.

But (as always) raising the minimum wage causes problems. We have already chronicled some of the research behind why raising the minimum wage doesn’t help the poor, and gathered some examples of what ends up happening in places with large minimum wage hikes (like Seattle losing millions of labor hours).

And just like last time, I’m going to post this video in the article again, because Ben Shapiro does a good job explaining exactly why minimum wage hikes don’t work. I recommend you watch the whole debate to really understand the other problems with minimum wage, but the biggest one in my eyes is growing governmental programs.

Now, back to Ontario.

Ontario has proposed a minimum wage hike to $14 in January 2018, which will ramp up to $15 in January 2019.

The idea is that the minimum wage hike will increase incomes for low-income workers and help the poor overall—contrary to all the evidence that shows the overall detrimental effects of higher minimum wages on small businesses and the poor.

But that’s not all. New research shows that minimum wage hikes hurt another group not often considered: immigrants.

This is a huge problem for the left. They will have to make a hard choice (not so hard) between “helping” the poor or hurting immigrants. According to the research:

Based on 185 minimum-wage hikes implemented by Canadian provinces from 1981–2011, we find that increasing minimum wages led to a reduction in employment rates of not just teenagers, but also immigrants. Specifically, a 10-per-cent increase in the minimum wage can be linked to an approximately two-per-cent decline in employment rates of immigrants aged 25 to 54 years old.

So, now we have even more “unforeseen” problems with raising the minimum wage—hurting immigrants. We knew that raising the minimum wage hurts teenagers and the poor, but now immigrants are suffering as well, especially since 19% of immigrants are minimum wage workers.

What the left fails to consider is that raising the minimum wage means people get laid off, hours get cut, and employers invest more in labor-saving technology.

Increasing the minimum wage does not help the poor. Period.

It actually exacerbates the problem of poverty and leaves many of our poor without the means to provide for themselves, thus requiring them to be propped up by government welfare. It’s a downward spiral that is fueled by increased immigration.

Many immigrants have a hard enough time finding a job. The Ontario Liberals (and leftists everywhere) should stop trying to ensure they don’t get one.