What wage is just?

[Theo520]

Very familiar with subsidiarity… sounds lime you should familiarize yourself with Rerum Novarum

maybe you are forgetting some of it. I think the US is in line with its expectations. Where wages are insufficient or work is not possible, we provide Govt assistance that has been shown to bring the vast majority above the poverty level.

Let the working man and the employer make free agreements, and in particular let them agree freely as to the wages; nevertheless, there underlies a dictate of natural justice more imperious and ancient than any bargain between man and man, namely, that wages ought not to be insufficient to support a frugal and well-behaved wage-earner. If through necessity or fear of a worse evil the workman accept harder conditions because an employer or contractor will afford him no better, he is made the victim of force and injustice

 

[Theo520]

I guess the question is what “insufficient” means. If it is merely referencing survival and the ability to earn just enough to keep earning, then we are fine. If it means giving the common man any ability whatsoever to support a family on a single wage then we are far from sufficient.

Got any evidence to back up your claim. Mine is in the thread I started on the war on poverty, and how our Govt programs have been very effective in meeting the expectations referenced in Rerum Novarum

 

[JimG]

Mike Rowe discusses the tight job market on CNBC:

 

[JimG]

It is worth noting that when Rerum Novarum was written, most families were supported by only one income earner. Thus, the focus was on promoting a “family wage” sufficient to support a family of mother, father, and children, on one income. When, some decades later, the two-income family became pretty much the norm, prices rose to match the increased family income. That forced every family to adopt the two income model or live at a level below the norm.

 

[Peeps]

There are many men throughout American history who have taken on second and third jobs to support a family. That’s what men DO.

Laura Ingalls Wilder wrote a series of true-life novels about her “pioneer family,” and described in each novel the many different ways that her Pa worked to support the family. At one point in her life, when grasshoppers destroyed their entire wheat crop, leaving them with nothing to sell (to earn money to buy food), Charles Ingalls (her father) walked hundreds of miles east to a part of the U.S. where jobs were available.

My father worked in a factory for 40 years, but he also did plenty of plumbing jobs on the side, worked his parents’ farm (he was an only child and their only helper), bought and sold antiques and copper wire, and eventually started buying duplexes and small homes to fix up and rent out (when he died, he owned 40 properties).

All this with a high school education only. And he was able to write a check for my college (I was the first person in the family to finish college.)

And he was so generous with his money–he made sure that the people in his apartments could afford the rent, and sometimes he would waive rent entirely if the people ran into a hard month. He donated to charities, bought lunches for people, helped old people with expenses, and of course, gave gifts to his children (me and my brother).

He also paid my mother’s expenses–in her final years, she had to go into a nursing home and he paid for it all.

My husband’s father was a schoolteacher who left for his second job in a factory when school was finished for the day. He also worked odd jobs in his spare time.

My brother welds in a factory, but he also does plenty of other odd jobs on the side, including continuing to rent out the properties that my father left him. And he continues to be generous like our dad–he paid for a woman friend to finish college in her 50s, and she is now an APN as a result of my brother’s help–one of only two women out of a class of 50 who completed the program and graduated.

I think perhaps you need to think about what men in the United States have done throughout our country’s fairly short history–they have worked their butts off to support their families, and they have been creative, tenacious, and self-sacrificing to do this. In the process, they have demonstrated character traits of love, selflessness, strength, and perseverance that mirror the example set for us by the Lord Jesus Christ. And these good men never even dreamed that the “government” would take money away from other people and give it to them instead. I think my dad would have refused to accept money that he did not earn by the sweat of his brow and the strength of his own two hands.

I think your ideas would turn men into little boys with no self-esteem or initiative, and women would not want to marry these men.

 

[Theo520]

High school grads without further education likely won’t live in a median home. They also raise their kids for less money than the ‘median’ cost you reference.

Your analysis is flawed.

 

[Peeps]

And yours would turn them into wage slaves spending more time at work than with their family, and in all likelihood not the type of man women would want to marry anyway. If the end result is the same (single and childless) then I suppose I’ll take the vidya games, aesthetic volcel lifestyle, frogposting on 4chins and 40 hours a week.

Your father lived in a 90% white country with a lower cost of living, few regulations, higher wages adjusted for inflation, and a divorce rate in the 10s. Spare me the boomer bootstrap speech. If I wanted that I’d talk to my father.

Maybe you SHOULD talk with your father! How DARE you criticize all the good men who did the right thing for their families and worked hard to be able to give them a good life!

And this isn’t just the “boomer generation” fathers–this has been the norm since the beginning of the United States! Wilder wrote her biographical books about the time period of late 1800s, and during that time, there were very hard economic times and financial “panics” for many Americans trying to settle this nation.

Interesting that so many fathers were “wage slaves” as you derisively labelled them, but the marriages lasted and many of us turned out fine and respect, honor, and LOVE our fathers.

And stop making a racist issue out of this. If you’ve read any biographies of African American families, you would know that many black men worked even harder than the white men and often worked several jobs to be able to be able to support their families. And how about the Asian work ethic (which is probably over-the-top, but who are we to criticize their own free choice?). And then there are the Hispanics, who again, often work at several jobs to be able to support a family.

It’s not just not “white men” or “boomers.” It’s good men throughout American history who have dreamed the American Dream and worked hard because they knew that the Dream isn’t just a fantasy, but a reality thanks to our Constitution and system of government that offers life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness to ALL.

There is no better time in all of American history than right now for people to go for that Dream here in the United States. The laws currently guarantee equal rights to ALL men and women, of all colors, religions, races, ethnic backgrounds, sexuality, and income levels.

But it’s not free and it shouldn’t be free. Giving people money that they haven’t earned does not help them to become better men or raise better families, any more than giving “easy grades” helps a student to achieve higher levels of learning, or giving an athlete a “bonus score” for trying makes him/her a better athlete.

Instead of campaigning for the government to make everything “equal” for men and women, it would be better to encourage men and women to get busy and go for it. There are thousands of stories of regular Americans who achieved good lives (in many cases, great lives) by taking advantage of the opportunities they have here in the United States.

 

[Peeps]

It sounds like you don’t think “rich people” work as hard as “poor people.”

That’s so inaccurate. Rich people work even HARDER and have LONGER work hours.

Even the actors that make so much money and appear to be having such a good time in their lives work so hard to get their celebrity and keep it. My daughter works in the entertainment industry, and she has put in plenty of 20-hours days. And she doesn’t have do all the working out and studying lines and going to classes (almost all actors continue their training throughout their lives) and making appearances and having interviews—these people work really hard, as do all the entertainers that are on stage, TV, or in films. They EARN their money.

 

[Peeps]

And I hope you realize that many, if not most, of the wealthy people in this nation give much of their money away to help people and support worthy causes.

Just watch a PBS show, and read through the extensive list of credits at the ending. Almost all of the “supporters” of the show and of PBS are wealthy people who establish foundations that support their favorite organizations and causes.

Wealth gives people the ability to help others and give back, and most wealthy people do this in abundance.

 

[lonegreywolf20]

Would anyone consider $12.18/hr for an EMT that has been doing it a fair wage? How about a medic that has been doing it over 30 years getting $16.00/hr?

That $12.18/hr has to also pay $600 a month for health insurance.

 

[DeniseNY]

the Church condemns unrestricted capitalism.

Where is there unrestricted capitalism?

 

[Pattylt]

I wish I was better informed in economics. It’s probably my weakest area of general knowledge.

But, can anyone explain the discrepancy between CEO wages in the 60’s to now? I forget the percentage of wage difference between then and now which is a way to bypass cost of living and inflation but using pretend numbers, in the 60’s CEOs made, say 150% of average wage at their business and now its 350%. During the 80’s all of a sudden CEO salary and benefits shot through the roof. Yes, the companies were mostly increasing profits but not to the extent that their wages went up and the working man just floundered with cost of living increases if lucky.

What changed?

 

[LilyM]

It sounds like you don’t think “rich people” work as hard as “poor people.”

That’s so inaccurate. Rich people work even HARDER and have LONGER work hours.

Even the actors that make so much money and appear to be having such a good time in their lives work so hard to get their celebrity and keep it. My daughter works in the entertainment industry, and she has put in plenty of 20-hours days. And she doesn’t have do all the working out and studying lines and going to classes (almost all actors continue their training throughout their lives) and making appearances and having interviews—these people work really hard, as do all the entertainers that are on stage, TV, or in films. They EARN their money.

From what I understand, the big celebs in the entertainment world might be working long days for, for example, the period of shooting and publicity of a film - which is a matter of a few weeks to a few months. And they might only make a couple of films a year. Leaves an awful lot of time where they aren’t actually putting in those 20-hour days, or anything like.

And can someone PLEASE tell me what it is that Bill Gates actually does or contributes, in terms of paid work that he personally performs, that makes each of his working hours tens of thousands of times more valuable than those of a burger flipper at McDonalds?

I get that he invested in and works for a company. So do his workers. So does every mum-and-Dad shop owner who doesn’t rake in big $$.

 

[Pattylt]

And can someone PLEASE tell me what it is that Bill Gates actually does or contributes, in terms of paid work that he personally performs, that makes each of his working hours tens of thousands of times more valuable than those of a burger flipper at McDonalds?

It’s his company. He started and built it and is now retired except for being on the board of directors. His wealth is due to the amount of stock he owns. And he’s a member of a group of wealthy tech folks that have pledged at least 50% of his wealth to charity upon his death…not counting the huge charitable contributions he makes now. I wish more wealthy would join in this.

 

[LilyM]

LilyM:

And - in this gamble they are staking the livelihoods and futures of their employees as much as their own on the success of their business.

That is, in most cases, absurdly wrong. Case in point, my old landscaping boss lost $20,000 the first season he expanded into snow removal. I never actually surveyed the guys that worked for him at the time, but I’d be willing to bet a fair bit that none of them had that much staked in the business.

They still might have lost their jobs - and their houses - if the business folded. And THAT is what they had staked on the success of your old boss’s business.

It’s easy to say ‘they could just get another job’, but a lot of low-wage workers are only one or two paychecks away from complete disaster, with no guarantee that they can find another job within that time frame.

Look I’m not saying a burger-flipper at McDonalds should be paid the same as the CEO, or anything like. But why, if they are putting in full-time hours, should they be forced to take extra work to keep afloat? How does such an arrangement leave them adequate time to spend with their families, for example?

I don’t think it’s a coincidence that as wages are keeping up less and less with real costs of living, such as the cost of housing, and the more people are forced to take more hours on to make ends meet, the more our young are suffering for lack of having a parent at home. Pay a good living wage, let the working parents have more time to spend with their families, the kids will be better supervised and less likely to turn to drugs, promiscuous sex or what have you.

 

[LilyM]

LilyM:

And can someone PLEASE tell me what it is that Bill Gates actually does or contributes, in terms of paid work that he personally performs, that makes each of his working hours tens of thousands of times more valuable than those of a burger flipper at McDonalds?

It’s his company. He started and built it and is now retired except for being on the board of directors. His wealth is due to the amount of stock he owns. And he’s a member of a group of wealthy tech folks that have pledged at least 50% of his wealth to charity upon his death…not counting the huge charitable contributions he makes now. I wish more wealthy would join in this.

You’re making it sound like everything Microsoft has achieved was done with his own two hands, his own sole genius and his own unborrowed (and un-creatively accounted for) dime. By which I don’t mean to imply that he has necessarily done anything unethical or illegal, let’s be clear.

Of course it wasn’t, far from it. His success has absolutely been built hugely on the backs of others, including no doubt rank-and-file workers who have been paid a pittance.

 

[Pattylt]

Far be it for me to defend Microsoft but it seems a pretty high wage place to work. I agree that Bill Gates didn’t do it all alone but the others that started it with him are very wealthy, too. It’s the increase in the value of their stocks that keep them there.

My issue, I think like yours, is that they outsource muck of their production and tech support overseas where working conditions are sometimes horrid and sometimes OK and we often don’t know which outsourced company they use. I’m interested in the idea of tariffs to encourage these jobs to remain in the US. I don’t want tariffs so high they discourage trade completely but a balance between it not being dirt cheap to outsource and dealing with a small cost increase in the products to keep jobs in America.

I’m ignorant of how the trade economy actually works so what I’m thinking of could be a total pipe dream!

 

[DeniseNY]

His success has absolutely been built hugely on the backs of others, including no doubt rank-and-file workers who have been paid a pittance

What are the average wages at Microsoft?

 

[Pattylt]

I looked it up as I was curious, too.
Average is 78 thousand to 156 thousand per year.

 

[Pattylt]

Googled janitor wages (usually amongst the lowest wages) and its $15 to $17 per hour. While that seems pretty good to me, I think the cost of housing in Redmond is quite high so I hope the janitors can take advantage of opportunities offered to expand their education for higher paying jobs down the road?