DiNovo Answers Coyne on the Minimum Wage

Cheri DiNovo, MPP for Parkdale High Park and author of the “Living Wage” Bill, has written to the National Post to “refute” Andrew Coyne's column on the minimum wage with “the facts.” Coyne rather gallantly has not commented, and actually says she has “torn it to shreds.”

But what she has actually done is provide us what could be a textbook example of almost the full range of logical fallacies.

Here are her stated reasons for supporting a rise in the minimum wage to $10 per hour—all her stated reasons in turn.

1. “Andrew Coyne is being flippant.”

Ad hominem.

2. “because that is what Campaign 2000 — the campaign to end child poverty by 2000, signed on to by all the major political parties — has asked for.” (And, she adds, Ontario Social Development Council, the Interfaith Social Assistance Reform, social planning councils, children’s aid societies, unions, immigrant associations and others.)

Appeal to authority. It does not matter who has said a thing—what matters are their reasons for saying it. Is Campaign 2000 justified in this request? We do not know.

3. “I also propose an end to the claw back of the National Child Supplement provincially, new housing, and support for small business in equalizing property tax. I would also support the sort of actions Ireland has undertaken that have brought its poverty rate down to a third of ours.”

Red herrings. These are separate questions, and have no bearing on the wisdom of the minimum wage law.

4. “…one would think Ireland was sabotaging its economy by raising the minimum wage to over $11 per hour. But as everyone knows, it is one of Europe’s great success stories.”

This is the fallacy of the hasty generalization: a case cannot be made from only one example, even if it is Ireland. There are too many other possible factors involved.

Oh yes, and “everyone knows”? Ad populum.

5. “Ten dollars an hour will allow someone who works 40 hours a week to actually pay the rent and feed their children without using a food bank.”

Begging the question. DiNovo is simply ignoring Coyne’s prior rebuttal, that almost nobody works full time for the minimum wage—and that ten dollars an hour is no more clearly a “living wage” in any objective sense than $8 or $12.

6. “Giving a single mother a chance to stop receiving social assistance and return to work without losing money is another good justification for a $10 minimum wage.”

Begging the question again. Coyne has already answered this point, and DiNovo ignores his answer: “When we think about it, it’s not a minimum wage we’re really aiming for: it’s a minimum income. If so, then the proper approach is to supplement the incomes of the working poor, through the tax-and-transfer system -- not fix their wages and hope for the best.”

7. “It’s good for the economy to raise wages, because it lessens the social service cost which costs all of us, and gives families money to spend.”

Begging the question. This ignores Coyne’s main point, that raising the minimum wage causes unemployment. This would presumably raise social service costs and give families less money to spend.


8. “Raising wages always costs money to business.”

Imputing motive. A form of ad hominem. Motive is irrelevant; the actual points made must be addressed.

But it is also begging the question, because Coyne has already pointed out that this is not so: “employers can always sidestep any attempt to impose a ‘just’ wage simply by hiring fewer workers.”

9. “That is why slavery was supported.”

False dilemma, aka the fallacy of the false alternative. It is entirely possible to reject a minimum wage without supporting slavery.

10. “But the issue of paying people enough to live on is about ethics, not just economics. Poverty costs us,…”

Straw man: Coyne is not advocating poverty. His argument is that the minimum wage causes it.

11. “Approximately 200,000 earn minimum wage. Again, if you are one of them, your economic circumstances would certainly change for the better under a $10 minimum wage.”

Begging the question. Coyne has already argued that your circumstances in this case could indeed change for the worse—you could lose your job.

12. “By his [Coyne’s] reasoning, we should all be unemployed by now.”

Fallacy of the false alternative. There are indeed other possibilities somewhere in between having no effect on employment, and throwing everyone out of work.

13. “I have heard the cry from women who work long hours and want for everything. The cry is for the well-being of their children. I will listen. I will respond.”

Appeal to pity. Aka tear-jerking. The outrageous implication is that we should agree with her because she claims to be more emotionally committed to her position than is Coyne to his.

The title of the piece, “Andrew Coyne, have you no heart?” is also of course imputing motive. But titles are from editors, not writers.

But note that, when you discount all the logical fallacies, there is absolutely nothing left of her argument.