05-13-2014, 10:32 PM
I live in Ontario, Canada. The tax here is 13%. However, items that are considered actual food are not taxed up to a certain price. The biggest problem I find with that is that if you're really poor, chances are you aren't living off of real food. XD There's also no tax up to a certain price on things like children's clothing and baby formula and such.
Minimum wage here is $10.25. We also have OHIP (Ontario Health Insurance Plan) so simple visits to the doctor and various other small things are covered (getting warts removed form your feet is covered, getting them removed from your hands is not.), meaning we don't have to pay. Prescriptions are not covered, neither is any sort of dentist fee or any other sort of doctor/specialist that isn't simply your family physician.
I think the biggest problem is FINDING a job in the first place. Let's be honest here, if you only have the skill set to work minimum wage jobs, then life probably isn't going to be easy for you financially. Ever. lol That being said my cousin is in that boat and gets paid a lot. XD He makes ~$20 or so an hour with 9.5 hour day 5 days a week. He has very few expenses, so he's got a lot of money to burn right now. XD However, he does have a job at a sewage plant. x.x; He gets sick a lot and it's not a very safe work environment. He's almost died a few times. v.v;;
I don't think minimum wage should be raised. Even if it were raised as soon as people could afford to buy more, prices would increase accordingly. People who work minimum wage make enough. That's good enough. If you need more money, apply for welfare.
Welfare is INSANE in Canada. Or at least in Ontario. I know people who've been living off it for almost all of their lives. I'm not sure exactly how much you get when you have children, but I'm pretty sure it's a significant amount more. If you don't have children they will give you as an individual up to I think $300 for rent. Which, given the right number of roommates, is possible. THEN they give you almost $300 on top of that for whatever. You get more depending on how much you pay for utilities and car insurance/maintenance and stuff, but assuming you're living in an apartment that's shared, you don't pay utilities. Any at all. And in a place like Toronto public transit is probably the best idea. $3 per ride, that's a $6 round trip, $120 for an adult bus pass good for one month. Obviously with a bus pass you get to go wherever you want as much as you want and don't have to pay.
Going back to welfare let's assume you get an apartment that's shared with a lot of people for $300. They pay your rent, that's completely covered. Now, let's assume you pay $100 for internet (Rogers is horrible and I HATE them) and then $50 for your cell phone, which I pay and I think is reasonable. That's $150($300-100-50) disposable income. $150 on food is A LOT. You can survive just fine on $150/month.
Now, going back to minimum wage, if for some reason you feel like you're somehow too good to be living off of what you earn, you can apply for welfare and they'll give you a stupid amount of money. Which is extremely annoying because that's my tax money, you freaking dirtbags. Welfare's an annoying and touchy subject for me because here, it doesn't go to the people who legitimately need help getting on/back on their feet. No, those people are HOMELESS! It goes to the stoner dirtbags who think they're too effing good to work and are lazy pieces of-
ANYWAY, no. I definitely DO NOT agree with your point. At least with regard to Ontario. lol I can't really speak for anywhere else because I know what it's like to live here. I have no idea what it's like to live anywhere else. XD Minimum wage is good enough. You can survive on it, if you don't like that go to school, work hard, get a good education and GET A DECENT JOB! People don't like to hear that but really, it's true. XD I hate it when people come whining at me like, "OMG, life is, like soooo tough. I work minimum wage and have, like, no money for the stuff I want but don't need. I'm not comfortable enough. blahblah communist bologna because I have no brain blahblah." THEN GET A BETTER JOB! It's no one's fault that you are where you are today but yours.
Good enough is good enough and if you don't like it, change it. And not by boosting minimum wage.
I'm tired and was probably offensive in my post. And I rambled and got off topic. XD I'm sorry. It's after 10:00pm, my bedtime is supposed to be 8:00pm. Life sucks. rofl
Also, your whole bread thing doesn't work, I buy bread and it's expired a few days later. A few short days later. Very short days... Like, two. lol And milk, too. Back home we used to get it and it'd take two weeks to expire. Here, it's being sold a few days before it expires. =/ I also live in a basement apartment, so bread moulds fast. I'm fine with eating it after the best before date, but once it's mouldy it's obviously no good. lol So bread does not last even a full week. Nor does milk. Or any produce here, they're squishy and gross when you buy them. v.v;; Maybe that's just Toronto? I hate it here. XD This place sucks. Please don't visit Canada and judge us based on Toronto. We aren't like that, I swear. v.v;;
I live mostly off of sweets to be honest. It's $1.25 for a bag of cookies at the dollar store, $2.00 for a big bag of Doritos, $1.50 for a box of cake mix, and $2.00 for brownie mix. Sometimes I buy pizza pockets and stuff, they're usually around $15 for 28 I think. OH! And pancakes. Seriously, I got screwed around for OSAP, so I went to my mom's house, bought 5 big boxes of, like, 30 pancakes(per box) and I still have 5 pancakes left. They lasted me I think 3 months. Just pancakes. Living off of nothing but pancakes the entire time. It was great. Especially because I paid less than $20 I think for all five boxes together. I kid you not. 3 months for ~$20. Yes.
It's ~$20 for a bottle of vitamins. I paid around that for One a Day. And you get a good 3 months or so out of them, so healthy enough. XD That's a complete multivitamin, though. It's important to get those ones.
The Bulk Barn is a really awesome place to go because you can get various mixes that you just have to add water or eggs to. Like, they have pancake mixes, brownie mixes, bread mixes, cookie mixes, cake mixes, etc. I get my eggs from the farm down the road from my mom's house. It's $6 for two and a half dozen and they're huge! Almost all of them have two yolks inside. Two and a half dozen eggs is nuts. lol That'll last you right until they go bad. You might not even be able to eat all of them in time. Eggs are very versatile, too!
I'm rambling and off topic-ish again. XD I'm so tired. I'm not even proofreading this. Proofreading is for class. XD
Minimum wage here is $10.25. We also have OHIP (Ontario Health Insurance Plan) so simple visits to the doctor and various other small things are covered (getting warts removed form your feet is covered, getting them removed from your hands is not.), meaning we don't have to pay. Prescriptions are not covered, neither is any sort of dentist fee or any other sort of doctor/specialist that isn't simply your family physician.
I think the biggest problem is FINDING a job in the first place. Let's be honest here, if you only have the skill set to work minimum wage jobs, then life probably isn't going to be easy for you financially. Ever. lol That being said my cousin is in that boat and gets paid a lot. XD He makes ~$20 or so an hour with 9.5 hour day 5 days a week. He has very few expenses, so he's got a lot of money to burn right now. XD However, he does have a job at a sewage plant. x.x; He gets sick a lot and it's not a very safe work environment. He's almost died a few times. v.v;;
I don't think minimum wage should be raised. Even if it were raised as soon as people could afford to buy more, prices would increase accordingly. People who work minimum wage make enough. That's good enough. If you need more money, apply for welfare.
Welfare is INSANE in Canada. Or at least in Ontario. I know people who've been living off it for almost all of their lives. I'm not sure exactly how much you get when you have children, but I'm pretty sure it's a significant amount more. If you don't have children they will give you as an individual up to I think $300 for rent. Which, given the right number of roommates, is possible. THEN they give you almost $300 on top of that for whatever. You get more depending on how much you pay for utilities and car insurance/maintenance and stuff, but assuming you're living in an apartment that's shared, you don't pay utilities. Any at all. And in a place like Toronto public transit is probably the best idea. $3 per ride, that's a $6 round trip, $120 for an adult bus pass good for one month. Obviously with a bus pass you get to go wherever you want as much as you want and don't have to pay.
Going back to welfare let's assume you get an apartment that's shared with a lot of people for $300. They pay your rent, that's completely covered. Now, let's assume you pay $100 for internet (Rogers is horrible and I HATE them) and then $50 for your cell phone, which I pay and I think is reasonable. That's $150($300-100-50) disposable income. $150 on food is A LOT. You can survive just fine on $150/month.
Now, going back to minimum wage, if for some reason you feel like you're somehow too good to be living off of what you earn, you can apply for welfare and they'll give you a stupid amount of money. Which is extremely annoying because that's my tax money, you freaking dirtbags. Welfare's an annoying and touchy subject for me because here, it doesn't go to the people who legitimately need help getting on/back on their feet. No, those people are HOMELESS! It goes to the stoner dirtbags who think they're too effing good to work and are lazy pieces of-
ANYWAY, no. I definitely DO NOT agree with your point. At least with regard to Ontario. lol I can't really speak for anywhere else because I know what it's like to live here. I have no idea what it's like to live anywhere else. XD Minimum wage is good enough. You can survive on it, if you don't like that go to school, work hard, get a good education and GET A DECENT JOB! People don't like to hear that but really, it's true. XD I hate it when people come whining at me like, "OMG, life is, like soooo tough. I work minimum wage and have, like, no money for the stuff I want but don't need. I'm not comfortable enough. blahblah communist bologna because I have no brain blahblah." THEN GET A BETTER JOB! It's no one's fault that you are where you are today but yours.
Good enough is good enough and if you don't like it, change it. And not by boosting minimum wage.
I'm tired and was probably offensive in my post. And I rambled and got off topic. XD I'm sorry. It's after 10:00pm, my bedtime is supposed to be 8:00pm. Life sucks. rofl
Also, your whole bread thing doesn't work, I buy bread and it's expired a few days later. A few short days later. Very short days... Like, two. lol And milk, too. Back home we used to get it and it'd take two weeks to expire. Here, it's being sold a few days before it expires. =/ I also live in a basement apartment, so bread moulds fast. I'm fine with eating it after the best before date, but once it's mouldy it's obviously no good. lol So bread does not last even a full week. Nor does milk. Or any produce here, they're squishy and gross when you buy them. v.v;; Maybe that's just Toronto? I hate it here. XD This place sucks. Please don't visit Canada and judge us based on Toronto. We aren't like that, I swear. v.v;;
I live mostly off of sweets to be honest. It's $1.25 for a bag of cookies at the dollar store, $2.00 for a big bag of Doritos, $1.50 for a box of cake mix, and $2.00 for brownie mix. Sometimes I buy pizza pockets and stuff, they're usually around $15 for 28 I think. OH! And pancakes. Seriously, I got screwed around for OSAP, so I went to my mom's house, bought 5 big boxes of, like, 30 pancakes(per box) and I still have 5 pancakes left. They lasted me I think 3 months. Just pancakes. Living off of nothing but pancakes the entire time. It was great. Especially because I paid less than $20 I think for all five boxes together. I kid you not. 3 months for ~$20. Yes.
It's ~$20 for a bottle of vitamins. I paid around that for One a Day. And you get a good 3 months or so out of them, so healthy enough. XD That's a complete multivitamin, though. It's important to get those ones.
The Bulk Barn is a really awesome place to go because you can get various mixes that you just have to add water or eggs to. Like, they have pancake mixes, brownie mixes, bread mixes, cookie mixes, cake mixes, etc. I get my eggs from the farm down the road from my mom's house. It's $6 for two and a half dozen and they're huge! Almost all of them have two yolks inside. Two and a half dozen eggs is nuts. lol That'll last you right until they go bad. You might not even be able to eat all of them in time. Eggs are very versatile, too!
I'm rambling and off topic-ish again. XD I'm so tired. I'm not even proofreading this. Proofreading is for class. XD
~Forbidden Snowflake~