Vaughan daycare owner boosts prices to deal with minimum-wage hike
'My infant program used to be $1,360 a month; it’s now $1,555:' daycare owner

Yorkregion.com
Jan. 18, 2018
Tim Kelly

Daycare operator Zoe Prassoulis didn’t have to give her employees a raise this month, but she did anyways.

As a result, the owner of Zoe’s  Tender Years Child Care Centre in Vaughan has had to jack up her prices.

Prassoulis, who employs 18 workers at her centre at 8551 Weston Rd., just north of Langstaff Road, doesn’t have any people who work at minimum-wage rates, but felt it was important to give her employees a raise after the minimum wage jumped from $11.60 to $14 on Jan. 1, an increase of 20.69 per cent.

“The way that hike (minimum wage) affects us, is that I’ve had to hike up my employees because they are so close to the minimum wage amount. Someone who is making $15 or $16 an hour is only $2 away from minimum wage so I’ve had to increase wages across the board for everybody,” Prassoulis said.

To compensate for that increase, which she said adds about $70,000 in costs for 2018, Prassoulis has boosted her daycare prices for parents by 10 per cent. She adds her insurance costs have also increased along with food prices too.

“My infant program used to be $1,360 a month; it’s now $1,555,” Prassoulis said.

She said some parents aren’t happy with the increase, but said it’s the same across the board with every child-care centre.  She said they understand why, but that the daycare centre doesn’t usually raise its prices so much at once.

“Everyone has increased their fees and it’s been from 8 to 12 per cent,” she said.

Prassoulis said the minimum-wage increase has been too much and too fast.

“Here’s the government talking about affordable child care but how do you have affordable child care when you’re doing a 20.69 per cent increase in minimum wage?”

She said a wage hike would have been fine, but 10 per cent as opposed to 20.69 would have been OK.

Zoe’s brother Johnny Prassoulis is owner of Holy Chuck Burger at 4421 Hwy. 7 in Vaughan as well as two stores in Toronto.

Johnny has about 40 employees, 90 per cent of whom he said work at minimum wage. He said the $2.40 increase per hour will add about $5,000 per store per month to his costs.

“It’s a huge impact, but I’m dealing with it by balancing employee hours. The main way is by a price increase,” Prassoulis said.

“I think it’s insane what happened. I’m not saying they (employees) shouldn’t get an increase but I think the increase should be done over time, I think these people that did the increase have no clue about small business and what it takes to run a small business and what costs are involved with a small business,” Prassoulis said.

“If I didn’t raise my prices, I’d probably have to close my doors,” he said, adding he’s raised his prices by six to 10 per cent. For instance, his signature burger, the Holy Chuck has gone from $10.49 to $11.49.

I had one customer come in who said: ‘You know what Buddy, I agree with you 100 per cent, you had to increase your prices, but it’s already expensive for me to eat here, now I’m paying an extra 10 per cent, I may not be able to eat here as much.”