Misplaced outrage

Re: "Longshore remuneration is already healthy," Letter, July 20.

A recent letter urged readers of this page to resent longshore workers' current pay scale and demanded that, "This greed has to stop." As evidence, the letter claimed that a longshore worker today earns "$157,600 in your first year and a six per cent increase in your next year!"

According to a May 17, 2023, City News article, "The latest numbers from Rentals.ca show there has been a year-over-year 14.7 per cent increase in prices. It says a one-bedroom suite in the city is going for $2,787 a month and a two-bedroom is going for $3,741 a month. Vancouver is the most expensive city for renters in all of Canada, according to these numbers."

To be "affordable", then, a 2-Bdr apartment in Vancouver requires a monthly income of at least $8,361 (three times the monthly rent). Yearly, this amounts to $100,332, leaving the longshore worker in question $4,772 per month to pay his or her taxes, save for summer vacation, buy the kids clothes and necessities, put food on the table, go out to eat, and in general do all the things that individuals renting out apartments for $44,892 per year (12 x $3,741 per month) do with the loot they extract from the productive economy.