Would the Catholic “Just Wage” principle, if implemented, solve poverty with dignity?

[Bartolome_Casas]

At Christmastime, many charities collect and handout Christmas gifts for kids, Christmas baskets with turkeys, and so on. There are the Salvation Army bell ringers next to the red kettles.

But it seems that making poor people dependent on handouts from either charities or the government demeans the dignity of poor people.

Would it be better for the Catholic “Just Wage” principle to be implemented?

If the Catholic “Just Wage” principle were implemented, then all people of working age who are willing and able to work would have enough money to take care of themselves and their minor children.

They would get all that they need, including health insurance and health care, by WORKING. No handouts at all. Anyone of a working age who is able to work but refuses to work, well, let them go hungry or go homeless.

Left oriented people tend to want Big Government.

Right oriented people tend to want what might be called “Big Charity”

(Big Charity is often principally funded by Big Business, as in the case of The United Way).

But both Big Government and Big Charity seem to violate the Catholic principle of Human Dignity for All, since both involve forcing human beings to BEG for handouts.

Therefore, the Catholic principle of a minimum Just Wage for all persons willing to work 40-60 hours per week seems like it would eliminate the need for either Big Government or Big Charity.

The U.S. Catholic bishops web site says this:

Family Living Wage – Ever since Rerum Novarum, issued by Pope Leo XIII in 1891, the issue of just wages has been a consistent concern of Catholic Social Teaching. In their 1986 economics pastoral, the bishops of the United States wrote: “The first line of attack against poverty must be to build and sustain a healthy economy that provides employment opportunities at just wages for all adults who are able to work.” (196) CCHD gives priority to business development initiatives that pay a living wage.
old.usccb.org/cchd/grants/principles.shtml#family

The 1911 Catholic Encyclopedia says this, in part:

Today Catholic teaching on compensation is quite precise as regards the just minimum. It may be summarized in these words of Pope Leo XIII in the famous Encyclical “Rerum Novarum” (15 May, 1891), on the condition of the working classes: “there is a dictate of nature more ancient and more imperious than any bargain between man and man, that the remuneration must be sufficient to support the wage-earner in reasonable and frugal comfort. If through necessity or fear of a worse evil the workman accepts harder conditions, because an employer or contractor will give him no better, he is the victim of fraud and injustice.”…
newadvent.org/cathen/04185a.htm

Here’s an article titled “Slave Wages Condemned by Pope John Paul II.” cjd.org/paper/wages.html

 

[charliedrake]

In Obamanomics there is no jobs just record food stamp usage. This is the greatest injustice to the middle class.

 

[JRKH]

The short answer is NO it would not “solve poverty”.

Implementing a “just wage” principle would not automatically make everyone employed and variations in economic health would cause greater or fewer numbers of people to be employed.

Paying just wages is a good and holy thing, but it would not - by itself - end poverty.

Peace
James

 

[exnihilo]

I dont know anything about the ‘Just Wage’ principle, but I can answer your question. No, it would not solve poverty. Poverty cant be solved for two simple reasons. One, poverty is relative. The richer a nation grows the richer the poor are relative to poor in the past. You will always have poor so long as you have inequality. Two, poverty is a result of the sinfulness of man. I believe the poor we shall always have with us.

Any sort of minimum wage is a bad thing if you want to employ the most people. Mimimum wages necessarily create unemployment. Some people dont want to work and some are barely employable and only at a low wage due to the poor quality of labor they offer. In short there is no solution to poverty. It can be mitigated by getting both those with resources and the laborers to lead more Christian lives. It seems the focus on getting people to be more Christian is solely on the employer. But many people are poor because of sin in their life. That seems to be ignored.

 

[John21652]

In Australia in 1907 a High Court Judge bought down what was to become known as The Harvester Judgement. The Judge, Henry Bourne Higgins, based his judgement on Rerum Noverum and decreed that there should be a* fair and reasonable wage.*, or a “basic eage”.

The trouble is, defining what is ‘fair’ and ‘reasonable’ is a very difficult thng. So to is defining what is ‘just’. What is ‘fair’ and ‘reasonable’ and ‘just’ for one person, or one situation does not mean it is ‘fair’. reasonable’, or ‘just’ in another.

In Australia it pitted Trade Unions against employers for many generations and a special court, the Court of Conciliation and Arbitration was set up to hear wage claims put forward by unions who had their idea of what was fair, just and reasonable.

What transpired over time was that it actually entrenched unemplyment, because not everyone had the skills to earn that basic wage and youth unemplyment in particular became entrenched. The system gave great power to unions, who thought they served their membership best by continually demanding hiogher and higher wages. Not every business has the same capacity to pay. And not every person has the same capacity to earn. A ‘just wage’, once fixed, does not reflect that reality. It’s all vey well to insist that an individual must be paid a certain wage, because someone decrees that wage to be ‘just’, but that just wage has to come out of someone elses pocket and they, in turn, must recoup that money from a market place. Tough luck if the market place doesn’t agree, because then the ‘just wage’ has caused labor to be unwanted as not being profitable.

Much better to let the market decide on what wages should be.

 

[AHapka]

No.

Let’s say, for example, you paid everyone a minimum wage of $20 per hour. Everyone will have so much money that prices will simply rise to to reflect that, and businesses will have to charge more to cover the higher payroll costs.

Imagine if McDonalds had to pay every employee a minimum of $20 per hour. Do you really think there would still be a $.99 menu anymore?

Also, let’s not forget that Jesus said we will always have the poor with us. If he said we will always have them, then we are not gonna prevent it.

 

[markomalley]

Right oriented people tend to want what might be called “Big Charity”

(Big Charity is often principally funded by Big Business, as in the case of The United Way).

I am likely as far to the right as anybody who regularly posts here and I do not favor “Big Charity” – I favor lots of “little charities”, where each individual takes personal responsibility to share, to the limit he or she is able, with those who have need.

The social doctrine principles of participation and solidarity, implemented with full respect to subsidiarity, call on all of us to do just that.

Frankly, the ones who largely favor “big charity” are those who I would characterize as “limousine liberals” – they want to be liberal with everybody else’s money and don’t care to get their own hands dirty.

 

[Monte_RCMS]

In a parallel thread, I asked on of the “just wage advocates” how much I should pay him … he would need to tell me so I would know how much to put into his pay envelope.

What I got was a long speech about how to determine how to compute what the company could afford.

But a just wage is based on each individual employee’s need.

So, I asked him how much to make out his check for.

What I got was: NO ANSWER.

 

[JohnAlexander]

Just how is this “just wage” supposed to be implemented?