S.J. Councillor, Business Owner Changes Mind On Minimum Wage After Facebook Debate
SAINT JOHN – The announcement that New Brunswick was raising its minimum wage by $2 prompted a lot of discussion in the province. Recently, that discussion led to a rare event: a level-headed exchange, on Facebook, that ended up changing someone’s mind.
Saint John City Councillor and Taste of Egypt co-owner Paula Radwan and EXP practice manager Morgan Lanigan had been Facebook friends for years. When Radwan posted about her concerns around minimum wage on Facebook, Lanigan started thinking about the impact of the wage increase.
Radwan’s main concern was that the increase in the minimum wage would result in prices going up, from food to HST payments to income tax, with minimum wage workers being hurt more than helped. Small business owners would also have to decide how to adjust to the $2 wage increase.
“Chances are most of them probably will put it on to the consumer unless they’re rolling a large profit margin,” explains Radwan, adding that many businesses don’t have more than a 10 percent profit margin. “In my business, I’ve already gotten emails from suppliers letting us know that minimum wage is going up and to expect price increases.”
Lanigan’s rebuttal to Radwan’s post broke down the financial and long-term benefits of the wage increase while also challenging the myth that it would have negative effects on minimum wage workers.
He pointed out that the new wage gives a 17 percent raise to “the working poor who desperately need it” while only raising prices by about 5 percent if a business chose to pass on 100 percent of the costs.
In response, Radwan changed her mind on the wage increase and now supports it.
“He did the math, he sat down and figured out how much extra a minimum wage worker, if they were working full time, for example, how much they would make a year and how much of that would go to taxes and then how much of that potentially would go into the economy,” she shared.
“I just wanted to be able to show that with New Brunswick being the lowest minimum wage in Canada at the time, a large bump in the minimum wage increase is beneficial all the way around,” Lanigan said.
He’s worked with the non-profit organization ONE Change for a decade and served as its president, so he’s seen the on-the-ground effects of low-wage jobs.
“We can improve health outcomes, we can improve poverty, we can improve child poverty – It might seem like a small thing to a few people, but it’s actually hugely beneficial to society as a whole.”
With the Internet often used as the battleground for an increasingly polarized culture and society, a debate being resolved in an open-minded and respectful manner is a rarity. That’s what made Radwan and Lanigan’s amicable discussion even more notable.
“Sometimes it takes somebody to sit down and shed light from a different opinion to change your mind, but it’s very important for us to always keep an open mind and listen to other people’s viewpoints – Morgan is phenomenal when it comes to doing a lot of strategic thinking,” said Radwan.
“I was very pleased to see Paula open to changing her mind on that too, that’s something that is very difficult to do, particularly on social media, where you’re expected to double down on your position and just argue,” added Lanigan. “It’s really refreshing to see someone say, ‘You know what, I hadn’t thought about that,’ and people can change their mind.”
Elizabeth MacLeod is a Saint John reporter with Huddle and Acadia Broadcasting radio stations. Send her your feedback and story ideas: [email protected].