Miami archbishop: raise the minimum wage [CC]

[ComputerGeek25]

I agree you can’t tell much about these statistics. Of that 15% of minimum wage workers who are over age 25, how many are retired people supplementing their income? How many are the spouses of full-time workers who are just earning a little extra? How many do it just to have something to do besides sitting around the house?

How many are really trying to make a living out of minimum wage work? These stats don’t tell you.

But no matter what, is a desire to allow people to make a living at minimum wage a sufficient basis for a moral crusade to raise it when we don’t know whether anybody is actually relying on those earnings for their living?

You and stinkcat14 make some valid points. At worst, 15% of those earning minimum wage are counting on it, but it certainly doesn’t tell us how many of these people are using a job as a reason just to get out of the house (and keep the mind sharp!)

It would seem to me that a lot of people work unskilled jobs have other sources of income and are willing to take minimum wage/reduced hours. Do we cut their hours or boot them out of the workforce, just because others want their jobs/pay? I would think that this goes against Catholic Social Justice as well. We’d also be discrimiating against a sect of people as well.

 

[Mickey_Finn]

I agree you can’t tell much about these statistics. Of that 15% of minimum wage workers who are over age 25, how many are retired people supplementing their income? How many are the spouses of full-time workers who are just earning a little extra? How many do it just to have something to do besides sitting around the house?

How many are really trying to make a living out of minimum wage work? These stats don’t tell you.

But no matter what, is a desire to allow people to make a living at minimum wage a sufficient basis for a moral crusade to raise it when we don’t know whether anybody is actually relying on those earnings for their living?

RR, all of your question are besides the point. It’s about fair wages for work. You seem to want to allow an entity that is not human to deside. We’ve not done this as a nation so far.

Further it is not a moral crusade, it is a common sense approach to an obvious problem. You are seeing people from all walks of life weighing in with their support for raising the wage.

It’s time to see this done.

 

[TEPO]

A dollar an hour raise earns about $30.00 more a week after taxes. About half a tank of gas. So would that be about all the Bishop is wanting?

Or should we assume that once the minimum wage is increased, it still won’t be considered enough?

 

[ComputerGeek25]

RR, all of your question are besides the point. It’s about fair wages for work. You seem to want to allow an entity that is not human to deside. We’ve not done this as a nation so far.

Further it is not a moral crusade, it is a common sense approach to an obvious problem. You are seeing people from all walks of life weighing in with their support for raising the wage.

It’s time to see this done.

People are being paid equally for equal work.

Again, are you implying that we should discriminate based on age, family status and gender just so that someone may be a single mom raising four kids gets a “living wage”?

Unfortunately, the problem is that UNSKILLED jobs will always pay less than SKILLED jobs, regardless of what minimum wage we have. Unskilled jobs will pay at the low end of that scale. One way out of it is to take advantage of any training programs that will make oneself get a higher salary.

What is your problem exactly? How hard is this to understand?

 

[CaptFun]

Is there a specific church teaching regarding * minimum wages*?

I’m so conflicted. The Church speaking up for the poor - is doing what Jesus did.
But I don’t remember any minumum wage parables or Biblical lessons. Warnings to the rich, yes. Warnings about just wages, yes again.

Government enforced details? No. Church (or Temple) enforced mandates for a minimum wage? I’m coming up empty. Though sometimes taxes were taken by Caesar - and the Prophet Samuel warned Israel about deferring all justice and power to an earthly King (government). 1 Samuel Ch. 8.

Mightn’t the resultant inflation hurt the poor more? (i.e. “The Most”?)

Wouldn’t “minumum wage” still be “minimum wage”? But in a more inflated economy?
Where the new minimum would buy less per dollar than what it used to?

Archbishop Thomas Wenski restated the Church’s position on just wages. Counsel to guide employers (and governments not to exploit people by paying them less than they are worth). Yet the fact that there IS a minumum wage – was a government solution supposed to take care of the injustice. That hasn’t worked - if I get the Archbishop right. A higher minumum wage is needed now?

How much higher? When was the last “raise”? Is the economy BETTER since then or worse? Is it from higher profits that this is to come from … or are struggling businesses near failure, to be forced to lay some people off, to accomplish this theoretical “necessity” per justice?

Archbishop Wenski is certainly hard to pigeonhole as either a prototypical “liberal” or “conservative” in the fashion of the media. The Miami New Times News did a bio on him in November 2010, headlining him as:

"Tea Party Conservative and Church Radical." <MNTN headline (November 2010)

miaminewtimes.com/2010-11-18/news/archbishop-thomas-wenski-tea-party-conservative-and-church-radical/4/

It reports he was a youthful fan of the late Cesar Chavez and – as later, as a cleric visited striking farmworkers in Florida publicly. He led a charitable outreach to Cuba after a natural disaster there … in which he worked with the Castro government. Then there was the “conservative” part.

While just a parish priest, Archbishop Wenski was quite a watchdog when the purveyors of condoms came into his Haitian parish (Notre Dame d’ Haiti) hawking their wares. He forbid any monies going to them (especially in Haiti where this had been a problem).

He also led a mass of reparation in 2009 after Notre Dame University gave an honorary doctorate to President Barak Obama and named him as its graduation commencement speaker.

In May 2009, he (Wenski) made headlines in USA Today and on MSNBC by slamming the University of Notre Dame for giving Barack Obama an honorary degree. He called Obama “one of the most radical pro-abortion presidents” and lambasted Notre Dame for its “thoughtlessness.”

“We Catholics have become too complacent about the legal killing of unborn children in America and elsewhere,” he warned a packed cathedral. “This complacency contributed to the climate that led Notre Dame’s president to think that it would be no big deal to defy the bishops in granting this honorary degree to President Obama.”

Yet … a new (“more just”?) minimum wage law (nationally) would have to be signed by this same President Obama.

So was the Archbishop addressing local or state governments to raise the minimum wage? Seems so IMO.

Looking to a government (or a KING if you will) to solve earthly problems comes with warnings from God (1 Samuel Ch. 8). The earthly KING make take more than he gives, and will GIVE what is taken to HIS servants (an unjust redistribution of wealth, it appears).

The people getting minimum wage now - have jobs. And have not quit nor gone on strike. Many more have no jobs. Some who have no jobs are getting paid more not to work than they’d make if they worked at minimum wage (with things like the cost of gas, babysitters - and new health care mandates, etc. figured in).

IMO - a call for a “higher minimum wage” is easily made by those who are not paying it - and may look as if the ones calling for it presume that our neighbors who are running businesses are always awash with money and yet exploiting their employees. Which could be a false witness (without the critical details being known).

What too often happens** when businesses are burdened by more outside (government) regulation** are things that the distantly generous by proxy folk would not suspect.

The new expenses prevent new hiring.

Or cause layoffs.

Or a cutback in hours.

Those laid off make even less than minimum wage.

Those retained STILL make just minimum wage … as do some who used to make MORE but no longer do (even after the “raise”).

With less staff, those retained work MORE hours or are required to do more work during the same hours to make up for their departed co-workers.

My heart may be with Archbishop Werski. But my head needs much more info as to how
**this **“SOLUTION” is ever the best thing.

 

[stinkcat_14]

Mightn’t the resultant inflation hurt the poor more? (i.e. “The Most”?)

Actually, there is no relationship between the minimum wage and inflation. As Milton Friedman would say, inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon. So inflation may affect the value of the minimum wage, the value of the minimum wage does not affect inflation.

 

[Mickey_Finn]

People are being paid equally for equal work.

Again, are you implying that we should discriminate based on age, family status and gender just so that someone may be a single mom raising four kids gets a “living wage”?

Unfortunately, the problem is that UNSKILLED jobs will always pay less than SKILLED jobs, regardless of what minimum wage we have. Unskilled jobs will pay at the low end of that scale. One way out of it is to take advantage of any training programs that will make oneself get a higher salary.

What is your problem exactly? How hard is this to understand?

I said nothing about equal. Calling a job unskilled is a curious thing to do, as most jobs I’m aware of require a variety of skills to perform them.

Otherwise this isn’t about training whether available or not. It’s about setting the minimum wage at an appropriate level. So far I’ve not heard a sensible reason not to.

ATB

 

[estesbob]

I said nothing about equal. Calling a job unskilled is a curious thing to do, as most jobs I’m aware of require a variety of skills to perform them.

Otherwise this isn’t about training whether available or not. It’s about setting the minimum wage at an appropriate level. So far I’ve not heard a sensible reason not to.

ATB

Nor have you told is what a"sensible level" is.I thought as Catholics we had a personal responsibility to help the poor.Doesn’t seem to me we fulfill that responsibility by forcing others to do it for us.

 

[ishii]

I said nothing about equal. Calling a job unskilled is a curious thing to do, as most jobs I’m aware of require a variety of skills to perform them.

Otherwise this isn’t about training whether available or not. It’s about setting the minimum wage at an appropriate level. So far I’ve not heard a sensible reason not to.

ATB

I think when people speak of “unskilled” jobs, they are referring to jobs that require relatively little training to perform - such as flipping burgers, making sandwiches at subway or perhaps being a maid at a hotel. A plumber, on the other hand, would be a skilled job because it takes a great deal of training, apprenticeship, etc. to become one. Another skilled job might be a computer programmer or even a brain surgeon! Hope this helps, Mickey.

Ishii

 

[JimG]

Actually, there is no relationship between the minimum wage and inflation. As Milton Friedman would say, inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon. So inflation may affect the value of the minimum wage, the value of the minimum wage does not affect inflation.

Isn’t inflation a matter of rising prices? Wages are a price of labor. When the Fed sets a 2% yearly inflation goal, it makes the minimum wage as well as other wages, worth 2% less each year.

 

[Ender]

Agreed. It is a complex subject, which requires further study.

It is a complex subject. More precisely, it is a complex subject in economics, and its very complexity pretty much guarantees it cannot also be a moral question. If reasonable arguments can be made on both sides of the issue then, while at least one side must be mistaken, neither side can be said to have made an immoral choice.

Which is why I take the Bishops statement with a grain of salt.

You may take his statement however you like so long as you don’t assert there is a moral obligation to agree with it.

Ender

 

[Ender]

Is there a specific church teaching regarding * minimum wages*?

The church has give us general guidelines, but there is no teaching that proclaims the position that must be taken on this issue. We are free to decide as we think best.

Ender

 

[CaptFun]

Actually, there is no relationship between the minimum wage and inflation. As Milton Friedman would say, inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon. So inflation may affect the value of the minimum wage, the value of the minimum wage does not affect inflation.

Let me ponder that. We may have a semantic difference. Maybe more. Then again, anyone who invokes Nobel Prize winning economist Milton Friedman has my attention and interest.

The raising of the wages itself is inflation unto the businessperson. Or if you will, the granting of more benefits, raises and pension increases means that the **government ** (public sector employers) must raise more taxes to operate at the previous years’ level. The cost of doing the same business would go UP. And there would be less profit for the business (if nothing changed). And usually, some inflationary change(s) would occur.

The cost of the change is passed on to the customer (or taxpayer) – so that the same rate of profit (or bureaucratic growth - I mean equilibrium ) is sustained. IOW, if 25 employees earning minimum wage at the local Mc Donald’s suddenly make $15 per hour (as is being proposed)

versus the $8 they make now (in California)

dol.gov/whd/minwage/america.htm#California

…it would not be surprising to see the prices of food there go UP (inflation to the customer). *

And paying more for their fast food is especially inflationary to the people who live in rented rooms without kitchen priveleges, students in dorms, working people who don’t brown bag, – and the unemployed homeless one often sees nearby - trying to get enough money to buy a fast food meal. * < Some examples to consider, that I’d hold to be true. *

INTERESTINGLY: **California **(which per the link above is shown to demand MORE than the federal minimum wage for its working citizens - is nonetheless raising it’s minimum wage from $8 to $10 … but not all at ONCE! It is being done gradually through 2016.

watchdogwire.com/california/2013/09/16/california-lawmakers-pass-minimum-wage-hike/ < Also on this chart and map, Florida (Archbishop Werski’s state) actually has a higher minimum wage than the federal government recommends (and pays?).

Soooo California – why not $10 immediately? Why not the “asked for” $15? I think even blue state California is being a bit careful about inflation (or unforeseen side-effects that would have the same negative consequences as inflation per the state’s economy).

To some it may seem that if the people at the bottom have more money … they will spend more or save more in California - benefitting the economy. And there is something to that. And ***though I’d still call that inflation ***myself – I will attest that though a LOT of inflation has occurred since I was a child in the 1950s – our standard of living (the more important thing) in most areas, has gotten better since then.

** More to the point (based on my personal experience) … when a Burger King Whopper was $1 - I ate a lot of them. It was cheaper for me than making a hamburger at home (plus no mess and no dishes). The deal was so good it became a staple. And the other fast food places got competitive (LOWERED their prices).

Somewhere along the line the 99 cent store started selling food. Some things that were 99 cents there were up to three times as much at the Food Markets that had union employees. Guess where I shopped. And even some of THEM shopped.

So now I eat more meals at home. Probably better meals, though I have to do my own cooking and dishwashing (though using paper plates approximates the fast food ease of clean up). These are market forces: supply and demand. Cost and savings. I’ve changed
– to the detriment of Burger King etc. … but to the benefit of the local Dollar stores (in my case). I still shop at grocery stores with union employees - but now in a supplementary, not a primary way. Not wishing my brothers and sisters who earn more now any harm, but all good health - I nonetheless run MY business (personal survival) in such a way that some of the stores I used to spend MORE money at per year have priced themselves out of my range.

I have friends who have worked at such stores who have had their hours cut or have been transferred or laid off. That’s how it can work.

Who’s to blame? Greedy capitalists? Greedy Unions? Selfish me for buying (extreme but true example) - a $1 hammer versus a $12 union made hammer?

I’m not sure. But I don’t want to covet someone else’s goods; join in some sort of class warfare, or play the blame game.

I DO find it hard to feel happy about perpetual government “do-gooding” that seems to fund new extravagances and budget increases while I personally economize (albeit out of necessity and not so much exercizing the virtue of thrift).

Sometimes I wonder if a little more George Orwell** and less of the Socialist “thinkers” should be injected into the mandatory Philosophy courses Seminarians have to take.

** Thinking here of “Animal Farm”* and how the utopian farm failed once they’d burdened the workhorse (representing Capitalism or the main producer(s) ) so much that it died.

 

[TEPO]

Honestly, Bill Clinton’s speech today on creating efforts to reduce preventable patient death rates in hospitals was much more admirable IMO than playing political economics. Anything is better than getting involved in politics.

danapointtimes.com/bill-clinton-to-speak-at-health-industry-forum-in-dana-point/

 

[CaptFun]

The church has give us general guidelines, but there is no teaching that proclaims the position that must be taken on this issue. We are free to decide as we think best.

Ender

That’s about what I thought. Nothing official (specific to minimum wage).

On a higher plane, Blessed Fulton Sheen had some interesting things to say regarding
a better way to do business.



goodreads.com/author/quotes/2412.Fulton_J_Sheen?page=4

Some day labor may become smart and instead of organizing to get more and more money out of industry, it may organize to get itself more and more ownership so that it may have some capital to defend.

by Fulton J. Sheen D.D., Ph.D.

December, 1951

I found that (above) quite interesting. Call it “profit sharing” or “stock options” … or a junior partnership; it would change some of the “class warfare” inevitability and change the adversarial view of management and labor into more of a team or win-win situation (my first impression albeit).

And like MOST of Pope Francis’ recently published document Evangelii Gaudium was less IMO about criticizing certain aspects of Capitalism than urging the faithful to care more for the poor (personally … and not leaving it to either a centrally planned government solution or an free market economic system to completely take care of the problem) – the late Blessed Fulton had an even HIGHER plane to direct us all to.

“Modern prophets say that our economics have failed us. No! It is not our economics which have failed; it is man who has failed-man who has forgotten God. Hence no manner of economic or political readjustment can possibly save our civilization; we can be saved only by a renovation of the inner man, only by a purging of our hearts and souls; for only by seeking first the Kingdom of God and His Justice will all these other things be added unto us.”
― Fulton J. Sheen, The Prodigal World

 

[TEPO]

It’s about setting the minimum wage at an appropriate level.

Who sets the appropriate level, and at what dollar amount should the federal minimum wage be? Would $13.00 an hour be too much?

 

[Tomdstone]

The point I’m making is not that they don’t support raising the minimum wage but that they shouldn’t support it because determining whether doing so is a good or bad idea does not involve any moral choices. It is not a moral issue and the clergy really shouldn’t be suggesting that it is one.

Ender

Our good Catholic bishops have the authority to teach, rule and sanctify. Since they are successors of the apostles, Catholics have a grave duty and obligation to pay attention to their decrees and to follow their excellent advice. On more than one occasion, our wise Catholic bishops have instructed us that the minimum wage should be raised according to Catholic moral principles because of the obligation of employers to pay a living wage. It is wrong for Catholics to dissent from the authentic Catholic moral teaching on raising the minimum wage as promulgated by the Catholic bishops in the USA. I urge everyone to listen to the bishops and to reread Catholic teaching on this issue.

 

[TEPO]

Our good Catholic bishops have the authority to teach, rule and sanctify. Since they are successors of the apostles, Catholics have a grave duty and obligation to pay attention to their decrees and to follow their excellent advice. On more than one occasion, our wise Catholic bishops have instructed us that the minimum wage should be raised according to Catholic moral principles because of the obligation of employers to pay a living wage. It is wrong for Catholics to dissent from the authentic Catholic moral teaching on raising the minimum wage as promulgated by the Catholic bishops in the USA. I urge everyone to listen to the bishops and to reread Catholic teaching on this issue.

I mean this humbly and honestly. I love our Pope Francis. But the US counsel of Bishops does seem to focus heavily on pop-politics and economics. To me picking this politicians ideas or that politicians ideas seems like a lack of something. There are a great deal of moral issues we could be discussing that the leadership could address on its own, such as dealing with preventable patient deaths in hospitals. To me, it seems like relying on politicians ideas shows a lack of real leadership. It just seems like the easy way out, but that’s not the road pope Francis urges us to take… The voters booth is just too easy of a way out for me. Sorry.

I’m sorry for being heartfully honest.

 

[TEPO]

Fulton J Sheen:

The modern world, which denies personal guilt and admits only social crimes, which has no place for personal repentance but only public reforms, has divorced Christ from His Cross; the Bridegroom and Bride have been pulled apart. What God hath joined together, men have torn asunder.

 

[HappyCatholic01]

I thought the subject of this thread was the minimum wage. What does that have to do with abortion and pregnant women? I think Pope Francis is right. There is such an emphasis on abortion that no other moral question can be taken seriously.

It does say in the Catholic Catechism that workers need to be paid a decent wage. The Federal minimum wage is so low that it is almost a joke. It is a good thing that the State minimum wage overrides the Federal minimum wage.

Who can get away with paying someone such a low wage? The last time we needed a plumber, it was $75 just for him to show up at our door!
After that, it was around $100 for every 15 minutes he was there!

If you need care for an elderly person, that will be a minimum of $20 per hour, and they don’t care that the elderly person has to come up with that kind of money with only a Social Security check.

The bishops are right, the minimum wage definitely needs to be raised!

You are arguing for a decent wage in one breath, and complaining about an (likely) independent contractor plumber who charged you too much (which is his hourly wage…)

I thought he deserved a decent wage? If so, he is allowed to set what he believes he needs to live, correct?