Miami archbishop: raise the minimum wage [CC]

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stinkcat_14 said:
Keynesian economic principles worked pretty good under Reagan. Cutting taxes and increasing government spending did seem to stimulate the economy.
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Cutting taxes isn’t Keynesian solely. And increased govt spending didn’t stimulate the economy. It was the govt cutting rates and getting out the way that allowed the economy to recover.
 
markomalley said:
It very well is envy. (and jealousy)

Maybe not for you personally, but sociologically, it most certainly is.

(NB: I make no where in the same order of magnitude of these CEOs base salaries, much less their stock options, in fact, I just took a 20% pay cut due to my current company’s financial difficulties…yes, I’m looking for another job)

First,

These CEOs are all hired by the stockholders of the companies. They negotiated an employment agreement that gives them a certain amount in base salary and in stock options. The base salary is actually worth less than the stock options…the value of the stock options is based upon how well the company performs (the company does well and the stock options are very lucrative…on the other hand, if the company goes bust, the stock options are worthless other than to start a fire).

If the stockholders believe that the CEO is compensated too highly, the stockholders can do something about it. For example, see Royal Dutch Shell. Since you mentioned Oracle, there is likely to be a shareholder revolt regarding Larry Ellison’s compensation package as well. The point is that CEO salaries are a negotiated agreement between the owners of the company (the shareholders) and the CEO. Frankly, it’s none of your business nor is it any of mine.

As Pope Leo XIII said:Wages, as we are told, are regulated by free consent, and therefore the employer, when he pays what was agreed upon, has done his part and seemingly is not called upon to do anything beyond. The only way, it is said, in which injustice might occur would be if the master refused to pay the whole of the wages, or if the workman should not complete the work undertaken; in such cases the public authority should intervene, to see that each obtains his due, but not under any other circumstances.
The CEO of a company is an employee, just the same as a janitor.

Secondly,

When you talk about comparing a CEO’s salary to a minimum wage worker’s salary, you imply that the CEO is somehow cheating the minimum wage worker out of his compensation. That is a very rash implication.2477 Respect for the reputation of persons forbids every attitude and word likely to cause them unjust injury. He becomes guilty:
  • of rash judgment who, even tacitly, assumes as true, without sufficient foundation, the moral fault of a neighbor;
  • of detraction who, without objectively valid reason, discloses another’s faults and failings to persons who did not know them;
  • of calumny who, by remarks contrary to the truth, harms the reputation of others and gives occasion for false judgments concerning them.
How many minimum wage employees does Oracle have? How about Tesla? and so on?

How many of these alleged low-wage employees are being paid below the market value of their skillsets? (paying a person at or above market value is just; paying a person less than market value would be cheating them)

Did the CEO lie, cheat, or steal to get his job? Did he misrepresent his qualifications? Did he potentially rise from being a line worker (doesn’t happen all the time, but does frequently happen with CEOs)?

Do you KNOW the answer to any of these questions? If not, are you not presuming the answer? Aren’t you being just a bit rash?

**Third,
**If Larry Ellison was to walk into Oracle Headquarters this morning and announce that he loves the company and has made enough money and from thenceforth would work for free, how would that benefit the poor?
Would Oracle go to the streets of Oakland and hire 1,000 homeless people to become database engineers?
Would Oracle go to the streets of DC and hire even one poor person?
Or if Bob Kotick was to make a similar announcement, would Activision start hiring the homeless to program computer games?

Though you didn’t mention this as a case, if the Walmart CEO was to give up his salary and decided to distribute it to all his employees (Walmart, in fairness, does have a large number of <$10/hr employees)…it would result in about $10-$15 per employee per year (contingent upon Walmart’s stock price). Hardly enough to make a difference in anybody’s life.

The fact of the matter is that the salary of a company’s CEO has nothing to do with the wages/salaries of the company’s employees.

But it’s very common for leftists, motivated by jealousy and envy, to make some claim that CEO salaries are earned on the backs of the poor workers.

The ONLY thing that should matter to us as Christians, unless some cheating or theft can be proven, is what Larry Ellison, Elon Musk, Bob Kotick, et al, do with their compensation once they’ve got it. Are they sharing their wealth with the poor? Are they contributing to the furtherance of the gospel? And so on.

If they are, may God bless their efforts.

If they aren’t, then it would appropriate to discuss how to reach them with the truth of the Gospel so that they would embrace the virtue of liberality. And that not out of jealousy, but rather out of concern for the state of their souls.
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Thank you, for a very well thought out post.
 
Laurie_Byron said:
I just believe that compassion is one of the most fundamental elements of Catholicism and that to love my neighbour means to acknowledge we live in an society.
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Laurie, this debate is not between those who have compassion and those who don’t but between those who believe raising the minimum wage will be helpful and those who believe it will be harmful. It is simply an economic calculation with both sides wanting to do what is right. Assume the CBO’s analysis is valid: 900,000 people will be better off and 500,000 will lose their jobs. Would you raise the minimum wage given those effects? That’s the calculation those of us who oppose raising it are making. Is it right to help some at the cost of hurting others?

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pnewton said:
Fortunately we do not have a Pope that goes around wringing his hands over how some media will spin his words. I for one don’t swallow everything I read in the paper. Do you?
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I don’t understand why you struggle so hard to disprove something that has been taken for granted for this entire debate. If you don’t believe anything the media says then you might have checked for yourself to see what Wenski actually said. Had you done so you would have found this:The federal minimum wage needs to be raised, not just for the financial security of the worker but also for their dignity and health of their families.

Letter of Archbishop Thomas Wenski and Father Larry Snyder to the US Senate regarding the federal minimum wage. February 2014
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zz912 said:
And increased govt spending didn’t stimulate the economy. It was the govt cutting rates and getting out the way that allowed the economy to recover.
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Source? I think if you could prove this you could get tenure at Harvard, or at least Chicago.
 
zz912 said:
Because it doesn’t just affect the lowest 2%. If the MW is increased to $10/hour, then those currently making $10/hr will want a raise. The reason they want a raise is because they know they are more productive, more skilled, and a better employee than a MW worker. So MW increases affect quite a bit.
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So when the MW goes up, how much of a raise will your boss give you? I want a raise myself (I can’t remember when I have ever not wanted one) but I guarantee you that I will not get one if the MW goes up. Wanting is different from getting.
It also causes wage increases for labor union contracts that are tied to the MW.

What percent of union contracts are tied to MW? What percent of workers are unionized?
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I suspect that if we all got a raise every time the MW increases, we would have it up to $20 an hour by now.
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pnewton said:
If you read the definition posted above, you will notice that envy involves wanting another’s good for oneself. Envy is not an issue here.
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I think the envy and greed cards are played way to often in these debates. After all, we don’t have threads criticizing powerball winners and they, by definition have more than most of the rest of us. It would seem that they would be just as big a target for envy as anyone.
 
Ender said:
I don’t understand why you struggle so hard to disprove something that has been taken for granted for this entire debate. If you don’t believe anything the media says then you might have checked for yourself to see what Wenski actually said. Had you done so you would have found this:The federal minimum wage needs to be raised, not just for the financial security of the worker but also for their dignity and health of their families.

Letter of Archbishop Thomas Wenski and Father Larry Snyder to the US Senate regarding the federal minimum wage. February 2014
Ender
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According to Canon Law, this is just Abp. Wenski’s private opinion and has no greater authority than that.

Did Abp Wenski say this knowing what the CBO report was going to say? Was the good archbishop aware that 500,000 people were likely to lose their jobs, and did he think that was okay as long as some number of people (whose circumstances he couldn’t possibly know) got a little less than $3.00 more per hour?

I doubt he did.
 
Ridgerunner said:
According to Canon Law, this is just Abp. Wenski’s private opinion and has no greater authority than that.
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For a private opinion, it certainly generates a lot of discussion.
Did Abp Wenski say this knowing what the CBO report was going to say?
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Is there some reason that the CBO is the gold standard for economic research? If the CBO came out and said definitively that nobody would lose their jobs and all minimum wage workers would have higher incomes, would you then be in favor of increasing the MW?
Was the good archbishop aware that 500,000 people were likely to lose their jobs, and did he think that was okay as long as some number of people (whose circumstances he couldn’t possibly know) got a little less than $3.00 more per hour?
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I doubt he did.
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You are suggesting that the Archbishop has consulted no experts before writing such an opinion? Any evidence that he did not?
 
freeRadical said:
I’m confused. Are you arguing for a minimum wage? I thought you were against a minimum wage.
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I am against the minimum wage, I just think that some of the arguments against it are not well argued. For example, some think that the MW causes big job loss. But the actual data is not so clear. So when someone makes a claim, it is always good to ask for the numbers.
 
stinkcat_14 said:
For a private opinion, it certainly generates a lot of discussion.

Is there some reason that the CBO is the gold standard for economic research? If the CBO came out and said definitively that nobody would lose their jobs and all minimum wage workers would have higher incomes, would you then be in favor of increasing the MW?

You are suggesting that the Archbishop has consulted no experts before writing such an opinion? Any evidence that he did not?
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I have no idea who the Archbishop talked to, if anyone. But it’s pretty clear he didn’t have the CBO report, since his letter predates it. But if someone can produce the facts upon which he based his recommendation, if any, I will be happy to look at them.

I don’t think anybody, including the CBO knows for sure what will happen, and that, I believe, is demonstrated by the squishiness of their estimated numbers. I don’t see how anyone could definitively predict what will happen if the government mandates wages, and particularly when unemployment is already a problem. However, when the CBO studies something and comes to a troubling conclusion about a topic, a person would be a fool to simply blow it off.

Whether or not the Archbishop’s letter generates a discussion does not make it anything other than his personal opinion under Canon Law. Since the Archbishop issued his opinion without citing any underlying foundation, and since the following CBO report seems to make him favor causing hundreds of thousands to lose their jobs, one can reasonably wish he hadn’t.

I can’t give a meaningful response to hypothetical about a fictitious scenario, particularly with only one effect given when there would surely be others.
 
Ender said:
The federal minimum wage needs to be raised, not just for the financial security of the worker but also for their dignity and health of their families.
Letter of Archbishop Thomas Wenski and Father Larry Snyder to the US Senate regarding the federal minimum wage. February 2014
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I checked this again … and this quote is from a letter from the USCCB, it is not from the letter the Archbishop wrote to the Senate. The USCCB document cites Wenski’s letter in support of its position but that comment was its own, not the archbishop’s.

What the archbishop said was exactly what was cited in the OP.a just wage is the legitimate fruit of work… . . [It] should guarantee man the opportunity to provide a dignified livelihood for himself and his family on the material, social, cultural, and spiritual level” (no. 2434). Just wages allow us to develop more fully as individuals, families, neighborhoods, communities, parishes, and even society as a whole. The current federal minimum wage falls short of this standard…
Regarding his own expertise in the field of economics, he also candidly observed:We write not as economists or labor market experts,
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Ender said:
I checked this again … and this quote is from a letter from the USCCB, it is not from the letter the Archbishop wrote to the Senate.

. The current federal minimum wage falls short of this standard…
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So you see know why I question what has been taken for granted. The AB believes the minimum wage falls short of a just wage. Raising this wage is one answer. A strong economy that provides for better opportunities is another, with a safety net for those that need it. Private charity is an answer. Tax credits that prompt charitable giving my address that side.
 
Ridgerunner said:
Since the Archbishop issued his opinion without citing any underlying foundation, and since the following CBO report seems to make him favor causing hundreds of thousands to lose their jobs, one can reasonably wish he hadn’t…
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He gave the moral foundation, not the economic foundation. That would be the job of policy makers. The CBO report is evidence to the potential downside of raising the minimum wage and needs to weigh in any decision made.
 
Ender said:
I checked this again … and this quote is from a letter from the USCCB, it is not from the letter the Archbishop wrote to the Senate. The USCCB document cites Wenski’s letter in support of its position but that comment was its own, not the archbishop’s.

What the archbishop said was exactly what was cited in the OP.a just wage is the legitimate fruit of work… . . [It] should guarantee man the opportunity to provide a dignified livelihood for himself and his family on the material, social, cultural, and spiritual level” (no. 2434). Just wages allow us to develop more fully as individuals, families, neighborhoods, communities, parishes, and even society as a whole. The current federal minimum wage falls short of this standard…
Regarding his own expertise in the field of economics, he also candidly observed:We write not as economists or labor market experts,
Ender
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Why don’t you give us the cite for the USCCB letter you’re talking about. They are always signed by some individual. And unless the bishops as a whole voted for it or it’s issued pursuant to a mandate from the Vatican, it’s just a personal opinion of the individual signatories no matter who signed it.

No one would have a quarrel with the quote above except for the conclusion that the current federal minimum wage falls short of a moral standard. In going from the universal to the particular, one needs a middle term. There is none in this proposition.

I still think it was ill-considered to put it on USCCB stationery because, in light of the CBO report, it gives the appearance that the USCCB supports 500,000 people losing their jobs as the “price of the ticket” of others getting a raise.
 
pnewton said:
He gave the moral foundation, not the economic foundation. That would be the job of policy makers. The CBO report is evidence to the potential downside of raising the minimum wage and needs to weigh in any decision made.
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He gave what he THOUGHT was the moral foundation for the conclusion, but he actually jumped from a moral principle to a conclusion about a particular political act without ever showing why the act flowed from the principle.

It’s too bad, because the CBO report makes it appear he would recommend the minimum wage change even if it would cost hundreds of thousands their jobs. I doubt he intended that, but when one just assumes any raise in wages is a good thing no matter what, it looks like he might have. I don’t know what he based his conclusion on, but now it sort of resembles shooting into a dark room without knowing who is in it.
 
Ridgerunner said:
He gave what he THOUGHT was the moral foundation for the conclusion, but he actually jumped from a moral principle to a conclusion about a particular political act without ever showing why the act flowed from the principle.

It’s too bad, because the CBO report makes it appear he would recommend the minimum wage change even if it would cost hundreds of thousands their jobs. I doubt he intended that, but when one just assumes any raise in wages is a good thing no matter what, it looks like he might have.
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Do you think he would recommend not raising the minimum wage if it meant 900,000 people would be living in poverty who otherwise wouldn’t?
I don’t know what he based his conclusion on, but now it sort of resembles shooting into a dark room without knowing who is in it.
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When it comes to predicting economic effects, most people are shooting into a dark room. Does that mean that most people should remain silent on economic matters?
 
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