Charity doesn’t buy a lot of shoes

OK, this is just a little crass, but the calculation begs to be done.

It apppears rather than buying himself a new pair of shoes for the Budget Speech, the Finance Minister has donated $4,000 to the Salvation Army to buy 100 pairs of running shoes for poor children.

A generous gesture. But if he had just raised the minimum wage by 10 cents/hour, every full time minimum wage worker in the province could have bought their kids four pairs of those $40 shoes. All told it would have probably bought more than 400,000 pairs of shoes. An increase in social assistance rates would buy even more shoes.

Charity is good. Commendable even. But it doesn’t buy a lot of shoes.

Topics: Children & youth, Poverty, inequality & welfare, Provincial budget & finance