What Is a Just Wage?

[Theo520]

Careful, that might lead you to some uncomfortable places concerning immigration and the idea that we should flood our country with one million foreigners a year when half our 30-year olds are underemployed

If we stopped importing millions of illegals, teens might start working again.

 

[RandomAlias]

I thought the country decided on equal pay for equal work?

Yes. We live within the world.

Can I help it if Jesus said things which the world considers foolish?

 

[DarkLight]

The trouble is employers want a quick filtering mechanism where they don’t have to have someone look over every application individually. Filtering it to only college graduates is an easy way of cutting your list down and getting people who are probably good candidates.

 

[Socrates92]

Your implication, if I’m correct, is that the deep-pocketed corporation should pay more for equivalent work, providing equivalent economic value, than the mom-and-pop, simply because it is able. The obvious tendency would then be for the deep-pocketed corporation to put all the mom-and-pops out of business by out-bidding them on labour, with the potential result that the previously comfortable mom-and-pop owners may not be able to make a “living wage” ( or profit). Are you suggesting that this is morally superior to corporations - and mom-and-pop - simply paying what the labour is actually worth to them economically?

 

[redbetta]

They have programs for scanning resumes nowadays. They can use that.

If they just go by degree, they might have the pleasure of having hired a bunch of gender studies grads who can’t use a fire extinguisher.

 

[Socrates92]

To be fair, many companies do practise this. It’s called “price discrimination”. It’s a great way to maximize profits.

 

[Socrates92]

Of course they’re honest, assuming the employees aren’t stealing anything. But that doesn’t necessarily imply that they are equal to other jobs. Most job, quite frankly, are simply more valuable than fast food jobs.

 

[Theo520]

Yes. We live within the world.

Can I help it if Jesus said things which the world considers foolish?

Your parable was about getting into heaven, not fair wages.

 

[DarkLight]

The trouble is they’re using it as a “first pass” filtering mechanism. Not that they aren’t looking after for who’s qualified, but they’re using it to cut down the number of people who even get looked at. If they still have enough well qualified employees in the group that they get after their first pass filter, they don’t have any incentive to not use it.

 

[Socrates92]

The question a lot of us have is whether we even have the jobs in our economy to put everyone into a skilled job. There’s no hardcoded reason that an economy is going to necessarily generate enough living wage jobs for everyone who needs a living wage. We’ve been over the years in the u.s. losing skilled jobs and gaining unskilled jobs, which means more people end up in unskilled jobs.

And this is exactly why we need to stop demonizing corporations (aka entities which create said jobs) for "skimming off the wages of hardworking employees. Companies require profits to stay in business and provide jobs, and the profit-incentive needs to remain intact, especially if you buy the idea that there is a job shortage.

 

[Pup7]

Do you have an hourly wage that is different for each worker? Does the employee’s need for insurance, car, cell phone, daycare also impact the wage? Or do you overpay the younger worker beyond his needs?

And where do you get the revenue to pay that wage?

That’s the piece people forget.

a Catholic employer may be best off paying everyone at a minimum like Employee B.

Great.

How does that employer get the money for that, exactly, and remain solvent?

 

[KMC]

Not sure if the price discrimination you are referring to is the same as what Augustinian asked about. I don’t know of any retail business that charges different pricing based on the economic means of the customer. McDonald’s charges me and Warren Buffet the same amount for a Big Mac (assuming neither of us has a coupon).

 

[Socrates92]

Not sure about retail. I think amazon might do it. I do know that many other places, such as theatres, have separate prices for kids, students, ordinary adults, and elderly, for example.

 

[Socrates92]

It’s not a perfect form of price discrimination, as the business in these cases doesn’t usually know the exact means (or “demand” in economic terms) of a given potential customer. But they can get a good general idea of the means/“demand” of a general population (ex. the student population), to set an optimal price for that population. Typically, student prices are less than ordinary prices, presumably leading to greater profits as a result.

 

[Pup7]

And if we decide (as a number of jurisdictions have) that we will have a minimum wage of$15/hour, in other words almost what a 5 year journeyman at peak would earn, we are either going to have tremendous wage compression, or we are going to see acceleration of the wage scale.

And - as we have also seen up here where these minimum wages have skyrocketed, the cost of living and prices in general go up in response - which is nothing more than common sense. I don’t understand where people think this money to pay these wages comes from - it comes out of their pocket. Then housing goes up (partially because of the increase in labor costs but also indirectly because they will charge according to what the market will bear, be it rent or real property), all costs go up…and soon that $15/hr gets you as far as the $9/hr did a few years before.

 

[Socrates92]

Yes, in the long run, nothing changes when you simply mandate higher wages or payments without these wages also being connected to higher productivity. Money is only a medium, not an actual good itself. Unfortunately in the short run, there are all sorts of distortionary effects when you simply wave a new wage into existence.

 

[Socrates92]

Haha, I think that’s one of the reasons many people go to university. I wonder if a hypothetical non-coed university would be able to charge the same tuition as the ordinary university does today.

 

[Pup7]

Yes, in the long run, nothing changes when you simply mandate higher wages or payments without these wages also being connected to higher productivity. Money is only a medium, not an actual good itself. Unfortunately in the short run, there are all sorts of distortionary effects when you simply wave a new wage into existence.

Yep. And most of the increases up here of course affected service-based jobs. You can’t increase production at Macy’s.

 

[RandomAlias]

Okay, more to the point, our economy is driven by love of wealth and love of power, not love of neighbor. Therefore we can expect it to be unjust. That’s the world we live in.

It doesn’t have to be so unjust. We can be made better, but it is not easy.

The OP asked what is a just wage. To answer that through the application of Christian principles in today’s world leads to certain incongruities and contradictions. It doesn’t quite fit.

The solution is not to declare injustice to be justice, or capitalism to be good, as some would have it. One only needs to look around to see that the economy falls short of goodness. Looking on the bright side, there is plenty of opportunity for us Christians to serve the poor – feed, clothe, teach, counsel, and so on.

 

[Pup7]

Those who are siding with the business community and saying that places such as fast food outlets would go broke if they paid a livable wage—please realize that that portion the business cannot pay will probably be absorbed by the taxpayer in support services for those workers who cannot make a livable wage.

The increase in taxes is distributed over an entire state. It actually comes down as a marginal amount per head.

Trust me when I say what I’m seeing happening up here is far worse. Because when this bubble bursts, it’s going to affect everyone. Housing is increasing artificially, goods are becoming outrageously expensive - and this has been noticeable in the seven months I’ve been here as the minimum wage went up about the time I arrived.

Restaurants and small businesses in Seattle have already gone broke because of this. Please realize that people have a limit to how much they will pay out for goods and services before they stay home. And people here are doing that.

We’re not talking about just CEOs. We’re talking about everyone.