Many today assume that the U.S. bishops have always stood united for the minimum wage and that it is part of the deposit of faith. However, this position evolved over the past century as the hierarchy moved from a view that social problems are to be addressed through just structures, animated by grace flowing through the virtues, to one where government solves these problems.
In reality, the Church’s magisterium never said that a wage should be legislated by the central government. Instead, it teaches subsidiarity (the idea that decisions are to be made at the lowest practical level) and that the primary parties involved in wage negotiations should be associations of those most affected by it and are the most competent to address it – workers and employers. The government’s role is to create an environment where talks between these groups can fruitfully occur. In a deadlock the government is to guide and support a return to negotiations. Only as a last-ditch effort is public authority to use its power of compulsion and impose a wage on the market (see Quadragesimo Anno [QA], 71; Catechism of the Catholic Church [CCC], 1883-1885).
In addition, the Church teaches on faith and morals but their application to specific policies is a matter of prudential judgment left to the properly formed conscience (see Sollicitudo Rei Socialis, 41; CCC, 68, 563). There are many ways of tackling worker poverty, such as the negative income tax, vocational associations, occupation-specific wage boards, training workers for better-paying jobs, social insurance programs, or creating industry funds to supplement workers’ incomes. These proposals, including the minimum wage, have benefits, costs, and unintended consequences. The magisterium never defined the minimum wage as morally superior to the alternatives.
How did the idea of a federally mandated minimum wage end up as if it were an article of the Catholic faith? As modernism took hold, Catholics were split over how to address the challenges it posed. Some advocated a return to traditional Catholic teaching while others wanted to integrate the new emerging philosophies with Church teaching. Authors such as Kevin Schmiesing, Michael Warner, and Thomas Woods documented how these tensions played out in the context of American progressivism in the late 19th and 20th centuries.
The conservative and liberal sides (“conservative” and “liberal” are used here for lack of better terms) stressed different aspects of justice. The Church defines justice as rendering each his due (CCC, 1807). In the case of wages, the Church holds to the distinction between distributive justice (that workers receive the resources they need in order to live their vocation) and commutative justice (equality in exchange) (CCC, 2411; also see Aquinas’ Summa Theologiae, II, II, 61). Commutative justice protects both parties of an exchange because it requires that each gives up something of the same value. If one receives more than what is given up, then one gains at the expense of the other and the exchange contract is unjust. Put another way, it honors the dignity of both parties to the transaction. As reported by René Holaind, Cardinal Zigliara responded to a dubia regarding Rerum Novarum and confirmed that the employer is required to pay according to commutative justice. Any amount above that is paid out of the virtue of charity. (By the way, Zigliara took part in the drafting of Rerum Novarum.) Pope Pius XI reiterated this teaching when he stated, “Relations of one to the other must be made to conform to the laws of strictest justice – commutative justice, as it is called – with the support, however, of Christian charity.” (Quadragesimo Anno [(QA], 110).
In the United States, Fr. Frederick Kenkel of the Catholic Central Verein, an association of Catholic societies, was an influential advocate for the conservative view. Rooted in the thought of Fr. Heinrich Pesch, whose ideas influenced Quadragesimo Anno, the Jesuits at the Central Verein taught that the primary responsibility of arriving at a just wage rests with associations of employers and employees using Catholic principles.
Msgr. John A. Ryan was the primary proponent of the liberal view. He interpreted the papal teaching on wages through the lens of progressivism. Downplaying the need for commutative justice in wage contracts, he believed wages must satisfy distributive justice. The virtue of charity puts an obligation on the employer for the welfare of the workers. However, since distributive justice is what a community owes its citizens (CCC, 2411), replacing charity with distributive justice implies that business owners have the moral burden to fix social problems regardless of whether they contributed to creating them or even have the ability to address them (see Ryan’s Distributive Justice, 3rd ed., pp. 275 and 280).
In line with deemphasizing commutative justice Ryan believed, in effect, that the needs of the workers take precedence over the needs of owners (“Distributive Justice”, p. 278ff). This is not to be confused with Pope John Paul II’s teaching of the priority of labor over capital (Laborem Exercens, 12), which defines “capital” as the means of production, or tools, and not capital owners. The former posits a reduction in dignity and rights stemming from the possession of a particular class of property while the latter teaches that humans take precedence over nonliving material things. One detects in Ryan a hint of Marxist class conflict and a presumption of automatic guilt on owners.
Ryan minimized the unemployment effects of the minimum wage in spite of the fact that some of its proponents pushed for it precisely for that reason. Thomas Leonard, in his article “Eugenics and Economics in the Progressive Era”, shows that the eugenicists sought to use disemployment to weed out the less productive members of society. Pope Pius XI was also well aware of the unemployment effects of forcing the wage up (QA, 74). This means that the morality of the minimum wage is subject to the double effect principle. The irony is that even in Ryan’s day, there were successful models where employers, without government compulsion, created family funds to address distributive justice while at the same time respecting commutative justice, as described in an US Department of Labor Report by Mary Waggaman entitled “Family Allowances in Various Countries” (Bulletin No. 754, 1943).
Ryan got a chance to promote his ideas at the conclusion of World War I when the Administrative Committee of the National Catholic War Council (a predecessor of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops) asked him to write the 1919 Bishops’ Program of Social Reconstruction. The document contains a wish list of the progressive platform, including a call for minimum wage laws. The Program was controversial, even within the Church, as noted in The Catholic University of America’s American Catholic History Classroom. Ryan later became head of the Administrative Committee’s Social Action Department (SAD), where he formulated the bishops’ response to economic issues. The following decades saw a tug-of-war between the liberals and conservatives within the hierarchy.
The bishops’ Pastoral Letter of 1919 (not to be confused with the Program) did not promote the minimum wage but, instead, mentioned “associations or conferences, composed jointly of employers and employees, which place emphasis upon the common interests rather than the divergent aims of the two parties.” It also acknowledged both forms of justices. It stated that distributive justice is met when the wage includes “decent maintenance for the present, but also a reasonable provision for such future needs as sickness, invalidity, and old age”. But it did not ignore commutative justice because “[c]apital likewise has its rights. Among them is the right to ‘a fair day’s work for a fair day’s pay’”.
Interestingly, a mere three years later, and in response to a growing socialist movement, the Administrative Committee issued their short “Paternalism in Government”, which has a decidedly anti-progressive tone. In an observation still relevant today, the committee stated:
Federal assistance and federal direction are in some cases beneficial and even necessary; but extreme bureaucracy is foreign to everything American. It means officialism, red tape, and prodigal waste of public money. It spells hordes of so-called experts and self-perpetuating cliques of politicians to regulate every detail of daily life. It would eventually sovietize our form of government.
In “Economic Crisis”, their 1931 response to the Great Depression, the bishops reiterated the call for vocational organizations. The bishops also emphasized the need for authentic Catholic evangelization and education to undergird the vocational associations. In other words, a reform of morals must occur before the reform of institutions. As Pope Leo XIII put it, “if human society is to be healed now, in no other way can it be healed save by a return to Christian life and Christian institutions.” (Rerum Novarum [RN], 27). This teaching appeared again in the bishops’ 1933’s “Present Crisis”, 1940’s “Church and Social Order”, and 1948’s “The Christian in Action”.
At the same time the bishops were promoting evangelization, education, and vocational associations, the SAD went on a different path and pushed for a legislated minimum wage. Ryan interpreted QA 71 as supporting direct government intervention in the wage contract (“Economic Justice: Selections from Distributive Justice and A Living Wage”, p. 120). In his justification he quoted part of QA 71 and focused on the phrase that if the wage is not a family wage then “social justice demands that reforms be introduced”. Even though the paragraph is set in the context of subsidiarity and associations, Ryan concluded that this “requires” state intervention if the employer cannot pay a family wage.
However, it is significant that his block quote omits the final sentence in QA 71, which praises all who “have tried and tested various ways of adjusting the pay for work to family burdens”. Oswald von Nell-Breuning, who composed a draft of Quadragesimo Anno, assures us in “Reorganization of Social Economy (p. 179) that Pope Pius XI had organizations like those mentioned in the U.S. Department of Labor report in mind in the last sentence.
On the heels of the National Industrial Recovery Act being declared unconstitutional (which disappointed Ryan), the SAD published “Organized Social Justice”. This booklet presents the traditional teaching on vocational associations but also drops a hint of a call for a federal minimum wage without addressing the open questions of commutative justice, subsidiarity, or how it meets the requirements of QA, 72-75. At the end of World War II support for the minimum wage became more explicit. The SAD repeatedly testified before Congress in person or in writing in support of amending the Fair Labor Standards Act in order to expand the minimum wage in 1945 (before both the Senate and the House), 1947, 1955, 1957, 1959, and 1961. Interestingly, the testimony was made in the name of the SAD and not the body of bishops.
In the post-Vatican II era, the bishops deemphasized vocational groups and fully embraced the legislated minimum wage. In their 1969 Labor Day Statement, the concern about evangelization, the development of virtues and the salvation of souls is gone and replaced by social programs. In their 1986 pastoral letter, “Economic Justice for All”, the definition of justice was changed to be something measured by “the treatment of the poor” (16), leaving no room for commutative justice. Ryan’s replacement of charity with distributive justice is now the teaching of the US bishops. Furthermore, with its official adoption of the minimum wage, a basic function of the market and civil society is now placed within the government’s sphere.
What makes a Catholic proposal truly Catholic is the conviction that the “first service that the Church must render to the cause of justice and peace is to call upon men to open up to Jesus Christ” (Address Of His Holiness John Paul II To The Pontifical Commission Iustitia et Pax). Otherwise, the Catholic proposal simply becomes another ideology drowned out by others in the marketplace of ideas. The Church teaches that social problems are best addressed by the Holy Spirit working through the virtues and well-designed institutions.
Authentic Catholic education and the sacraments are the ordinary means by which we grow in virtue (CCC, 1810-1811). We need the spiritual food that Jesus gives us in his teaching and at Mass. We should take Pope Leo XIII’s admonition to workers in their associations to heart:
It is clear that the perfecting of religion and morals should be regarded as their principal concern and their internal discipline is to be directed completely to this end. For otherwise they would lose their special character and become little better than those other associations which take no account of religion at all. Besides, would it profit the worker to seek through organization for material profit if his soul be exposed to danger for lack of spiritual food? (RN, 57)
Authentic social renewal requires the triad of education/evangelization, the principles of Catholic social teaching, and the sacraments. It also requires having the proper balance between the church, government, the market, and civil society. Restoring this balance is the first step in, as Pope Pius XI’s puts it at the beginning of Quadragesimo Anno, “reconstructing the social order”.
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“Commutative justice” is papistical superstition, and not an article of Catholic faith at any rate, no matter what economically illiterate popes and prelates say. As a matter of sheer scientific fact, it’s not true that in an economic exchange “each gives up something of the same value.” If things exchanged had “the same value,” no exchange would ever take place. Instead, in real life, people only exchange things because they subjectively regard what they give as having less value than what they receive in exchange, i.e., they subjectively believe that the exchange leaves them in a better position than why they started.
It doesn’t matter how many holly bulls or encyclicals any number of popes promulgate to the contrary. Reality doesn’t care what the popes say. Neither should Catholics, when popes say manifestly stupid things.
Don C., speaking of “manifestly stupid things,” I would like to address your comment:
Leftists have never understood the genius of capitalism.
They view work in a capitalistic system as nothing more than a burden, an occasion for the exploitation and predation of workers.
It somehow escapes them that the reason the standard of living goes up in a country is that workers are producing products and services — the good things that make people’s lives better and make societies thrive.
The fact is, leftists always focus on money. But, quite obviously, money produces nothing. It’s people spending their days working their jobs who bring the good life.
At its core, leftism is unfair. In a system of distributive justice, everyone receives “the resources they need” — which always sounds wonderful. After all, who wants to see people in poverty?
But when everyone receives “enough,” it means that the lazy, unproductive, unreliable workers get the same pay as the dedicated, diligent, hard-working workers.
And psychologists will tell you that in a system that does not recognize and reward outstanding performance, the best participants come to understand that their extra efforts are wasted. And they will inevitably begin reverting to the mean — lackadaisical, subpar performance.
Which is why socialist countries always end up as varying degrees of gray, depressing and impoverished.
It’s inevitable.
Think about it. In Venezuela, all the workers — and the layabouts, for that matter — have “enough” money for “the resources they need.”
Just one problem. There aren’t enough of those “resources.”
The fact that everyone gets “enough” money, whether they work or not, ensures that many don’t work. And so there are severe shortages of products — including food — throughout the country.
And so what is your money worth when there’s nothing to buy, Mr. Leftist?
Leftists have no concept that capitalism’s genius is to align the interests of the individual with the interests of society.
People are rewarded for their hard work and productivity. And society benefits accordingly.
And people are also rewarded for their good ideas for new products or services — personal computers, online shopping, iPhones, whatever — according to the value that others place on them.
Finally, while leftists are obsessed with money, they have no idea of what money really is.
Money is a societally recognized abstraction for value produced. When a worker completes a job, he has delivered something that is of value to someone. That value created is reflected in the pay he receives.
When many workers create much value — producing food, fixing cars, replacing roofs, whatever — wealth is created. There’s lots of money to spread around, leading to more economic growth and cultivating a robust and prosperous economy.
When you hold a $100 bill in your hand, you’re in a very real sense touching the time and imagination and lives of countless individuals who contributed to all of the value which that bill has delivered since it was first created.
Leftists understand none of this.
Which is why socialist societies always, always, *always* end up oppressing their citizens.
For socialism to succeed, people must be forced to act in ways that are against their best interests. Whereas, under capitalism, people are free to pursue their best interests, wherever they perceive those interests leading them.
So what about the unfortunate individuals who for whatever reason are left behind in poverty within capitalist economies?
That’s where charity comes in. Virtue. Compassion.
Or, if you prefer, Christianity.
It’s worth noting that charity is also ennobling to those on both ends of the transaction, both the giver and the receiver. The giver feels good about helping someone, and the receiver feels worthwhile because he’s being blessed by a personal gesture of fellowship by another.
Charity is a virtue and is, therefore, of God.
Whereas government entitlements tend to rob an individual of his sense of accomplishment, of self-respect, of satisfaction. In fact, government handouts can prompt people to feel like victims and sullenly resent those who have more. In this way, they’re able to justify to themselves their dependency.
The sad fact is, distributive justice’s real effect is to make sure that everyone has “enough” of the scarcity, the poverty, and the starvation it inevitably produces.
Remember that Jesus never compelled anyone to act virtuously. He respected the dignity of each individual, realizing that coercion is the absolute end of virtue.
Perhaps it’s time to expect governments, which are definitively *not* divine, to act with at least the same level of restraint shown by the Savior of the universe.
Disagreeing with none of this (!), the newest “New Things” (Rerum Novarum 2022 instead of 1891) includes such new deformities as the following, where the devil is in the details:
(a) The devaluation language, namely of the dollar (one dollar in 1945 is $16.46 today), combined with the failure of the IRS dependents-deduction in the 1945 to keep pace,
(b) Service sector “jobs” (hamburger-flipping) are not as valuable as the off-shored manufacturing jobs they’re invented to replace,
(c) Academic grade inflation/declining employability, combined with despondent lethargy,
(d) Rent-seeking by colleges/universities in alliance with banking industry serving its market segment of student-loans (read indentured servants),
(e) Job loss through both robotics and low-cost foreign labor,
(f) Personal and corporate taxes used to pay equal shares into the federal budget, but the imbalance (in 2015) against families/individuals was 46 percent versus 13 percent (of the total federal budget).
Oh well, print more funny money and spread it around to client-group voters. Use the minimum wage as a campaign slogan.
The calculus is really tough—now with a national debt of $30 Trillion (thousands of billions) and some $400 Billion drained away each year into interest payments. When the minimum wage was pioneered in Seattle, to make ends meet many employers reduced hours, or cut staff, or cut (low-wage) entry-level jobs linked to advancement, or all three. Moreover, the baseline cost-of-living varies by state and locale, which renders a single numerical federal minimum wage a bit magical.
So, yes to subsidiarity. And, the “new thing” is the more tangled system. Progressivism.
There is a biblical principle, applied by St Paul, that justifies legislating a minimum wage: “Do not muzzle an ox while it is treading out the grain.” (Deut. 25:4; 1 Cor 9:9; 1 Tim. 5:18).
The Apostle applies this to exhort his disciples to ensure that Christian pastors be properly remunerated, and he did this on the assumption that bishops and deacons are family men. The rule – biblical and therefore part of the deposit of faith – is that an employer must ensure that each of his employers is paid no less generously than a Christian pastor.
Theodore Misiak talks about and focuses on “minimum wage.” In a very negligible citation he mentions the foundational text of Catholic Social Teaching, Rerum Novarum. This is unfortunate because he could have contrasted and elaborated on “minimum wage” with Rerum Novarum’s teaching on “living wage” and “fair wage.” In the encyclical, Pope Leo XII taught as a matter of faith and morals that workers were entitled to wages not merely sufficient to live on – what is sometimes called a “living wage” – but what he called “fair wages.”
Pope Leo defined fair wages as more than a living wage; they should be enough for the worker, the worker’s spouse, and the worker’s children not only to live on, but also to have enough to save for a better life. Obviously vast portions of the world’s population do not receive such fair wages. Even here in the United States all working-class and many middle-class families do not have a single wage-earner who has pay enough to be called a fair wage. America’s minimum wage, which is what millions of Americans are paid, is a shameful $7.25 per hour. That falls utterly below a fair wage and leaves families in poverty.
During the Covid pandemic when multitudes of informal workers worldwide had no steady income to get through the hard times, Pope Francis suggested it’s time for a “universal basic wage” for all workers. Here in the U.S. most misunderstood this to mean the same as Andrew Young’s idea. Actually Pope Francis’s suggestion of universal basic wages is an effort to reinvigorate the century old Rerum Novarum idea of a fair wage. Given the disparities in wealth around the world, with the top 1% and international corporations possessing obscene levels of wealth while billions struggle for bare necessities, it is certainly appropriate for the Holy Father to insist that the idea of a fair wage should be reconsidered now.
Instead of promoting the idea that “minimum wage” be not mandated federally in the name of subsidiarity, the author could better have taken up the thrust of Catholic Social Teaching especially in Rerum Novarum to advocate for “fair wage” (Pope Leo XII) or “universal basic wage” (according to Pope Francis, not Andrew Young).
Minimum wage was never meant to be a wage to support a family but a starting wage. I have 8 children & when I was widowed & looking for a way to feed them, I took a job at $6.50 an hour & was glad to have that until I could either prove myself & get a raise or find a better employment opportunity.
as did many others. i also have felt that when one gets that 1st job, it is a training position. when i got my first job other than babysitting for cousins, i was paid .50 for 2 hours of cleaning men’s toilets at a smelter. was happy to get that. when i left a Security position 7 years ago, after 11 years of service, I was paid $8.50 hour. the pay was for the position one held; often times as a mgr. the highest pay ever recieved was $15.00, and was on call 24/7, if someone didn’t show for a shift, guess who got it? if a substitute could not be found.
I still feel that the wages paid are for the job done. recently in a local big box store, 2 clerks were standing around, visiting, i was needing help and try as i might they would come my way to be of service. needless to say, that store will not get my business. guess what there are other stores in this beautiful world that want my business. I shall be happy to give it to them.
When I was 11–12 I was paid 25 cents an hour for babysitting. We must be from the same era.
🙂
But we could also watch a Saturday morning matinee for a quarter & evening theatre admission for children was only 50 cents. So, it all worked out.
Yup, I was in a “big box” store parking lot recently listening to two employees complain about their jobs & how they couldn’t make ends meet on their wages. One employee was elaborately tattooed & had those huge ear-plug piercings, etc. The tattoos were brightly coloured & looked fairly recent & expensive. I can’t know his personal financial decisions & priorities, but it did make me wonder.
Not every job that could be done (and is frequently done by volunteers who do not get paid anything) is “enough” to make a living wage.
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There was a young man (not so young anymore!) who for years bused tables at the local pizza place. He was developmentally disabled, could barely make conversation. But it was the one thing he could do and he did a good job. The job was not worthy of even a minimum wage, but less than “living wage.” The job existed only to get him in the the world doing something useful.
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The library relies on volunteer teens to run their reading program. The reading program could not be run if they children were paid. The local sports club relied on teens to run many of their “kids nights out.” Again, funds raised for the activities did not pay the bills. Those jobs should be compensated (they are not) but the minimum wage laws do not allow that kind of thing.
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I’d be very interested to know exactly how much, in dollars is a “Fair ware” or a “living wage.” Frankly, I can’t imagine anything less than $75,000 a year.
Yes, a family needs 75k, esp considering all the deductions. Hard to believe but the buying power of the dollar is plummeting so fast.
Wages have not kept up with the cost of living and middle class jobs are being replaced by automation etc…
Where I live 75K a year is way above the average income. I suppose cost of living comes into the fair wages issue and it can vary quite a bit per region of the country.
And I’m sure you already know this, but it’s not about what you make, it’s what you keep. In a previous job I ran credit reports and it never failed that people would always spend more than they made no matter what their income level.
Keeping to a budget and staying out of debt helps you hang on to more of your earnings.
so right you are. i learned 40+ years ago. 10% goes to God.
10% save for a rainy day.
10% invest in your future.
70% you live on.
this works.
Tithing -absolutely.
I heard that the Chinese save half of what they earn because they didn’t have pensions. I don’t expect many of us do that but putting away savings for the future is something most Americans seem to have forgotten about. At the very least we should have 6 months emergency funds saved up. And some provisions too. You’d think the lockdown might have taught us something but probably not.
My “$75,000” comment was meant to be somewhat facetious since I know folks who get along quite well on that; it does depend on location of the country and lifestyle.
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Terms like “minimum wage,” “living wage,” “universal basic income,” “fair share” are meaningless because there are wide, wide despiraties in desired lifestyle and “cost-of-living”
For sure Kathryn. What people can live on decently varies greatly per state, city, & lifestyle.
I was going to pass on commenting on this article because I don’t think there is a hard and fast rule on the minimum wage, but then you had to go and cite Francis as some kind of an authority on it. Bergoglio is illiterate on economics and a great many of the other subjects that consume his time and energy (I won’t call it thought). It is particularly rich for you to mention the economic upheavals caused by the Covid lockdowns in the context of his call for a universal basic wage. Francis threw the full weight of the Papacy behind the brutal, economically destructive, and scientifically meritless shutdowns imposed on the world by the elites in response to the pandemic. Nothing was gained and a great deal lost because of these stupid and cruel policies and the most vulnerable were the ones hit the hardest. So, after helping to destroy the livelihoods of so many lower income people who simply wanted to earn their keep, in his great “compassion”, he proposes to corrupt their morals with a new welfare program. If Francis had the best interests of ordinary workers, and not those of Communists and plutocrats in mind, he would not promote such impoverishing schemes such as this example and the even more dangerous Green Agenda.
Thumbs up.
Ironically it’s NOT Andrew Yang’s idea. Andrew Young was the mayor of Atlanta, among other things.
UBI used to be called a “negative income tax” and one of the most vigorous proponents was Milton Friedman-yes that Milton Friedman.
The genesis the idea was that he accepted the welfare state as a given, so we should provide it as efficiently as possible. It was well know in the days of bearer negotiable physical food coupons, that there was an active black market, and the coupons were usually traded at a 30% discount from face value. I remember hearing in an economics class that therefore, we could simply give 70% of the amount spent in food stamps to provide the same utility to recipients. This of course conflicts with the basic tenant of economics that human desires are unlimited and insatiable.
When the so-called “Earned Income Tax Credit” (more properly, the unearned income free gift) came into existence; Friedman applauded it.
He apparently didn’t consider the potential for the loss of self esteem inherent in dependency, the potential for widespread fraud (it’s one of the most fraud ridden programs or the ability of the government to buy votes by encouraging millions of people to think the IRS was the real Santa Claus.
Friedman exercised enormous influence. He was to economics what Carl Sagan was to cosmology. As time goes by, I’m beginning to think Friedman was myopic in his approach to policy.
Ive heard people propose that the government simply hand out USDA commodities instead of food stamps. Well, cards actially these days.
I don’t know if there’s enough of that to go around but the govt. peanut butter and cheese are excellent.
🙂
That proposal is an attempt to impose a cost on receipt of benefits or subsidies in the form of limiting choice. Apart from the sheer stupidity of the government entering into food markets as a buyer (and it’s always to increase the price paid to producers) and then distributing is as “free”, requiring staff to distribute and dispense food and validate recipient identity (how long before we’re told nobody who is hungry should have to prove their eligibility);
there are good reasons not to distribute actually foodstuffs to recipients. The last thing somebody with a peanut allergy wants is peanut butter, the same applies to lactose intolerance and cheese, as well as celiac disease and foods with gluten.
This would be especially true if the distributions were preconfigured.
Inevitably, that will simply create a black market for unsuitable or unwanted foods. Banning the sale or trade of distributive foods is difficult and inefficient to enforce.
“There are no solutions, just tradeoffs”
-Dr. Thomas Sowell
I stand corrected. Missed typing a third “I” twice. It should be Pope Leo XIII.
Our local library had a coffee bar that was staffed by the developmentally disabled and a helper. These were not volunteer jobs, but paid. Then the State raised the minimum wage and the coffee bar could no longer make enough money to stay open. Jobs losts; an opportunity for the truly needy to get out and interact with the world lost.
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This is probably my biggest issue with the Church: in the name of helping “the poor,” the hierarchy is doing enormous damage to them
Agree. Suggest Bishops and all do gooders should learn some economics. Start with with reading Thomas Sowell’s book titled “Basic Economics”. Interestly he was once a Marxist. He changed his position once he studied the facts and learned about the destruction caused by minimum wage on youths who could not get a job because of cost of minimum wage. If you run a business you only hire someone if cost of wage is lower than the value of work performed. A further suggestion is to read Sowell’s biography “Maverick” by Jason Riley. Another interesting book on this suggest is Friedman’s book “Free to Choose.”
Yup. Young people are going to find it harder to get hired also.
The subject of minimum wage needs to be understood in a practical or one might say economic sense. The wage paid must not be higher than the value of the work performed, in Basic Economics the Marginal Cost of the wage must be less than or equal to the Marginal Value. A good source is Thomas Sowell’s book Basic Economics, a very readable book. His biography titled Maverick is a litle deeper but valuable to understanding his key insights, including minimum wage.
Basic Economics is quite a good book
One of Sowell’s best quips is his statement to the effect of asking “and then what” would avoid most bad policy efforts. A good bit of practical economic literacy is anticipating probable higher or effects and the potential for adverse contingencies-unfortunately most graduate economics degrees create quantitative exhibitionists with entirely too much faith in the idea that the world will adhere to their equations. What writer Nassim Taleb calls “the ludic fallacy” or the late Ronald Coase called “blackboard economics”.
errata: “higher order”.
Authentic social renewal requires dealing with the twin problems of the state and of oligarchy.
Yes, we are constantly told that Christ said “render unto Caesar”. I note that the passage doesn’t say “and everything Caesar claims is his”.
Fair wages are one of the main reasons so many Catholic schools have to close; we just can’t compete with the taxed society when we have to pay our teachers.
Stewardship of one charges required fair, reasonable and equitable at the lowest possible level, the principal of subsidiary.
What I have done very successfully is pattern work in packages, to a result that is needed; match the employee/worker to it; and the give it an attractive wage.
Take a simple example. Janitor service at closing time requires about 2 hours or 2.5 hours of labour. A schedule of requirements is laid out and the job is set up as part-time. The worker arrives for the designated time. This can be considered a service contract, it is between 2 parties on the terms they set and can be terminated as they agree, eg., a contract for 4 months. It can be renewed too mutually at their will.
I have in fact paid for this work between x2 and x3 times minimum wage. There are no “employee contributions” that have to be remitted (pension etc.) and there is no PAYE taxation. The party is able to handle simplified and structured workload with vigour and is free to take on other work as suits him, full-time or part-time during the day and even later in the evening. Or spend more time at home. Alternately if needed the “employee contributions” aspect can be accommodated.
These work parcels can then be arranged in streams, like alternating days – or consecutive days with breaks if needed. There is no vacation leave or paid vacation leave. At any point where you would like to make a gratuity, ex gratia, medical contribution or “severance equivalent”, it is very easy to do. A slate of contractors can be developed over time.
N.B. 1. This is not found in economics texts.
N.B. 2. This has gone in a most satisfying way for everyone concerned with only some complaints remaining coming from a minority element on the Board of Directors.
you have found a workable solution to your need. and you spelled it out so simply.
I have done “temp work” for a number of years. I loved it as it was a variety of jobs, some i loved and they loved me. and was often called back when the need arose. I guess what i am saying is: Love the work, and you will be loved. even distasteful jobs can have a silver lining. God Bless the employers.
Amen, kls. Attitude & dependability are key to employment & both are in shorter supply these days.
Thank you kls.
Side-benefits include the feeling of goodwill the arrangements engender; where people see they are respected, “pound of flesh” minimalism can’t constrain the dialogue and the mind is freer to pay attention to the details in the work.
And when you have to set up whatever rules or parameters are called for or that suit the results needed from the job, it works through much better.
I have a particularly useful background to understand this subject. Undergraduate degree in Economics, MBA in Finance and Accounting and am licensed as a CPA.
Although I am not currently in public practice; if a client approached me about how to react to a minimum wage increase, just off the top of my head I could recommend cutting operating hours, increasing technology (i.e., you scanning your own groceries), reducing or delaying benefits, increasing education and/or experience requirements, increasing performance expectations, longer probationary periods, cutting staff or foregoing hiring-just for starters.
In short, state hourly wage mandates don’t operate ceteris paribus. As with any price increase, there are income and substitution effects. This is not lost on interested parties; in the 1960’s Otis Elevator was advocating a higher minimum wage so that it would be more expensive to hire “elevator attendants” (generally older men needing a non physically taxing job in retirement) in order to stimulate demand for their automatic elevators.
https://www.econlib.org/archives/2009/07/using_the_minim.html
The best assurance that people are remunerated fairly is being economically literate and having plenty of alternatives. That way, an employer who attempts underpayment will meet the brutal swift justice of turnover.
Tonight, I stopped at a local ice cream stand. It is as it always is, a seasonal operation staffed by teenagers. They are working for spending money, not to support a family, and learning how to work is as important as their hourly wage. They are also tipped. What’s a “fair” wage to them? Should the government dictate a wage that will force the stand to be understaffed or driven from business? I sure hope not, it’s one of the few places I can still get piquant flavor of the Eastern Teaberry.
In the modern economy of entrepreneurialism, “gig” employment, digital independent contracting, working from home, day trading, equity grants and development stage companies and other developments, the hourly minimum is rapidly becoming an anachronism.
I’m sorry but minimum wage laws are catnip for the ignorant or nefarious.
Teaberry flavored ice cream?
Teaberry lozenges are one of my favorite candies even though they dye your tongue bright pink.
🙂
“…Cardinal Zigliara responded to a dubia…”
Dubium.
How often do we read a catholic blog and get an article indistinguishable from a Republican Party think tank presentation?
“Screwing poor people into making less money is MORE Christ-like, actually (and other things Godless lefties don’t want you to know!)” would have been an appropriate alternate title.
How often do you read a comment on a Catholic site and realize its author struggles at reading comprehension and basic knowledge of Catholic teaching?
Answer: Every time Joe K. comments here.
American President Abraham Lincoln grew up as a child ‘indentured servant’. Lincoln disliked the injustice of being an ‘indentured servant’ and considered himself a slave as a child. Abraham Lincoln studied law and became President of the United States, to lead our country through our roughest era to liberate African Americans from the injustice of slavery. Though Lincoln liberated African Americans from slavery, sadly, pro-slavery forces assassinated Lincoln before he could end ‘indentured servitude’ on the American Family Farm as well.
https://www.facebook.com/AbrahamLincolnSeries/videos/1791624947733072
I grew up on an American Family Farm in the 1960s-70’s. Children nine years old and up were forced to work from 7:00 – 8:00 am, to 8:00 -9:00 pm. Children were forcibly worked six and a half days a week. Children were paid about $30.00 to $70.00 a month for this 400 hours of intense manual labor. On one particular field day, a toddler was drinking a lot of water and his diaper blew up like a balloon. The boss came by and ripped his diaper off and put the toddler back to work. Why were toddlers working? For indoctrination purposes.
I could see that we children were seen as ‘indentured servants’ slaves serving our slave master, on the American Family farm plantation, in America, during the 1960s and 1970s, just as President Abraham Lincoln suffered ‘indentured servitude’ 100 years before us. Nothing has changed.
During the Industrial Revolution of the 1900s, the natural economic forces of Free Market and Capitalism, put the little family shoe maker, dressmaker and other family business producers of commodities out of business, in favor of the far more efficient big corporations. The US government decided, hey if we let big corporations rub out all the inefficient little 160 acre family farms, we will have a massive population transfer to the big cities. In order to keep rural areas populated, they began the Farm Subsidy programs, to keep American Family Farms alive, and rural areas populated.
Now we simply have to write to our elected officials to put an end to Farm Subsidies. The only thing Farm Subsidies do is proliferate the Exploitation of Children for cheap labor on American Family Farms. Please help America finally free herself from the injustice and humiliation of forced child slavery in America, on American Family Farms. Please help President Abraham Lincoln posthumously finally win his battle against the injustice of slavery. God Bless America!
Please Pope Francis, American Bishops, and fellow Catholics, help America end present day forced child slavery on America’s family farms.
P.S. American Family Farmers receive forty percent of their income through American Taxpayer US farm subsidies. My father took half of my union school teachers money that we had to live on, to buy prideful expensive tractors. My father, like a majority of Family Farmers, do not obey US Department of Labor Laws. There was no reason, other than evil human pride, for my father to not sell the cows and get a job to support his family.