CELPIP Reading Part 4 Practice Test: Minimum Wage Increase Debate

Minimum-wage earners will soon receive a raise: the provincial government is lifting the general minimum wage from $16.75 to $18.50 an hour in two stages. Labour Minister Rachel Okonkwo-Bell calls the increase overdue; rent and groceries have outpaced wages, and nobody working full-time, she argues, should have to choose between the hydro bill and feeding their children. A first instalment of 90 cents arrives in April, the remainder the following October.

Denise Arsenault, a mother of two who is a pharmacy cashier by day and cleans offices three evenings weekly, greets the news with measured relief. “The money will help,” she acknowledges, “but not enough to give up my second job, and my rent will probably have climbed again before the increase is complete.” She would prefer a minimum wage indexed automatically to inflation, sparing workers interminable waits for politicians.

Luc Fontaine, whose family bakery employs eleven people, mostly students paid near the minimum, is considerably less enthusiastic. He estimates the change will add about $28,000 a year to his payroll. “A chain with hundreds of outlets would barely notice,” he notes wryly. He intends to nudge prices up, trim weekend hours and hesitate before hiring summer staff; “The casualties,” he predicts, “will be inexperienced youngsters who never get hired.”

Hye-jin Park, of the Prairie Policy Institute, finds merit on both sides. Research on modest, incremental increases has generally detected little effect on overall employment, partly because better-paid employees stay longer, curbing recruitment and training costs. Abrupt jumps, however, can hit labour-intensive businesses hard, particularly in smaller towns where customers have less disposable income. “The pace matters as much as the amount,” she maintains, recommending a temporary payroll-tax reduction for firms with fewer than twenty employees.

Okonkwo-Bell rules out such relief, noting that the increase was deliberately divided into two stages to give employers breathing room. Low-wage earners, she adds, spend extra income locally: “When Denise gets a raise, she isn’t putting it in an offshore account. She’s spending it at businesses like Luc’s.”

Fontaine remains unpersuaded: most of his customers do not earn the minimum, so for them the raise simply means pricier bread.

I run a small hair salon, so I read this with mixed feelings. I understand Mr. Fontaine’s fears, but I think he is 6. Choose…overstating the dangerunderestimating the costright to be alarmedignoring his customers. As Dr. Park explains, job losses from gradual increases tend to be 7. Choose…substantialnegligibleconcentrated in small townsgrowing every year, and my experience bears that out: once I paid above the minimum, my staff 8. Choose…asked for more hoursstarted looking elsewhereworked fewer weekendsstayed put and I spent far less training replacements. Still, the minister is too quick to dismiss 9. Choose…relief for small firmsphasing the raise in over two stagesa freeze on the minimum wagefewer summer hires; a short-term break for businesses my size would cost the province very little. As for the cashier’s proposal, linking the wage to 10. Choose…business profitsrising pricesthe federal ratestudent enrolment would spare us all these sudden jumps nobody can plan for.