Posted on 07/02/2006 7:06:06 PM PDT by xzins
Jesus? No. The Law? Absolutively. Can't reap the corners of your fields. Remember the alien, the fatherless, and the widow. There was a fairly extensive welfare system for an agrarian society.
And we help them when we convince the government to pass laws which force other people to pay more money to their employees.
We also help the poor when we get the government to take other peoples money by force and give it to the poor. Yeah that's the ticket. Lets get the governemnt to do all our charity work. Then when we stand before God we can say... "Hey, I paid my taxes".
Charity by proxy.
WHy not at least be reasonable and put the minimum wage at a level where you can buy food, clothing, and medical care for you and a small family? I challenge any poster on this board to support himself on $5.35 an hour in a 30-hour work week.
Let's see, where in the constitution is there any authorization for the United States Congress to set a minimum wage for a hamburger flipper in Xenia, Ohio?
And what if someone wanted to learn a job that might help him get out of poverty and was willing to work for $1 per hour until he mastered that job? Why should he be prevented from volunteering to do that job for next to nothing until he had a marketable skill?
Those provisions you cite from the law were not among those required of Christians. Those are listed in Acts 15.
"Let each man work out his salvation with fear and trembling."
Commerce clause.
We also help the poor when we get the government to take other peoples money by force and give it to the poor. Yeah that's the ticket. Lets get the governemnt to do all our charity work. Then when we stand before God we can say... "Hey, I paid my taxes".
Charity is also an imperitive, but the minimum wage is about enforcing this Biblical command:
“Thus says the Lord of hosts, Render true judgments, show kindness and mercy to one another, do not oppress the widow, the fatherless, the sojourner, or the poor, and let none of you devise evil against another in your heart.” - Zech. 7:9-10
The law is still valid; it's just not the terms of inclusion into the Christian community. God is no more pleased with indifference to the poor today than he was in the Old Testament.
To the best of my knowledge, minimum wage was never intended to allow an individual to support a family by paying for food, clothing, rent, medical care etc. Rather it was intended to be a starting point for the teenager or other young person to get that first job and get some business experience. It certainly worked that way in my case. My first job out of HS in 1952 was lugging 50/60 lb. mail sacks from the mailroom of JC Penney to the post office for $33.00 wk. It taught me the benefits of a college education. Sadly this doesn't work for the mentally ill, substance abusers and others with similar problems. Thats where we have to come in as Christians and work to fill those material needs. Using the government to fill that void by raising the minimum wage isn't the answer.
Discuss the issues all you want but do not make it personal!
If the only people paid at that rate were teenagers earning spending money after school, than I'd agree. I still think $5.35 is too low even for that, but it isn't a moral issue there.
My first job out of HS in 1952 was lugging 50/60 lb. mail sacks from the mailroom of JC Penney to the post office for $33.00 wk.
In 2005 dollars, that's $235/wk. In order to earn that today in a typical retail work week (30 hours), you would have to be paid $7.80 an hour. That's almost a third higher than the minumum wage. You still think $5.35 an hour is reasonable?
You've been brainwashed. Try thinking for yourself. Do you think the founders put the commerce clause in the constitution so that the fedceral government could regulate a small town restaurant in Ohio? The constitution would never have passed the various state legislatures if anyone even suspected that the commerce clause would be given such a broad interpretation. But I suppose you subscribe to the "living document" theory, huh?
Charity is also an imperitive, but the minimum wage is about enforcing this Biblical command:
The law of unintended consequences comes into play. Raising the minimum wage does two things which cause more poverty. First, it creates more unemployment as businesses that operate on the margin are forced to lay off employees or go out of buisness. Second, it lowers the value of money thus creating inflation which, if you have a minimum wage in place, creates more poverty as the value of that minimum wage decreases.
I'm sure that if you did a study you would find that raising the minimum wage does more harm than good and those who are harmed the most by it are those who are on the edge. It may have some temporary benefit to the poor, but in the long run it creates a bigger problem for them as the cost of everything goes up and the value of their money goes down.
The road to hell is paved with good intentions. If you someday stand before God and he asks you what you did for the poor and you say that you voted for people who raised the minimum wage, do you think you will get brownie points for that? Chances are God will show you all the misery that was created by attempting to do charity work through cumpulsory taxes and cumpulsory minimum wage laws. He will show you all the small businesses that went belly up taking their owners into the very poverty that you intended to ameliorate. He will show you all the people who lost jobs and went into despair because their employers could no longer afford their services. He will show you all the real charity work that went undone because those people who might otherwise have contributed more to real charities were unable to do so because they were forced out of business by laws and regulations and taxes that were intended to help their employees (who are all out of work because of them).
We should be encouraging the government to let people keep more of their own hard earned money and then encouraging them to give that bounty to the poor through real charity and not government programs and regulations. We certainly should not be encouraging the government to create unemployment and inflation and putting small businesses out of business by artificially raising the minimum wage.
As a market-based capitalist, I am certain that the best price for any type of labor should be set by the market.
But, given that we have a minimum wage, we have to ask about the person whose aspirations go no higher than that of a minimum wage job for the remainder of his/her life.
I don't think there are many like that out there.
If there's any value at all in the minimum wage it is that's it's an entry level point for some workers in some very low-skilled jobs. Those who do well will move up quickly from it. Those who aspire to no more than minimum wage and have no better effort than a minimum wage effort are going to end up without even that job.
But, if you were to ask me, it is harder to do some jobs than others: flipping burgers, while busy at times, is not physically demanding; nor is it risky. As one in the middle of law school, you might have noticed that you were one of few who even qualified to get in. You have skills that will result in a higher income. (Unless you give it all away. :>)
That is no different than ever, when the market has been allowed to operate with some decent level of freedom.
Why do we pay a master mechanic more than we do a hamburger flipper? For that matter, why do we pay an apprentice mechanic more than a hamburger flipper?
And if we by law force the price of the hamburger flipper up to that of an apprentice mechanic what message are we sending about the acquisition of skills?
BTW, among my other counseling issues, I have also counseled on family finances.
It is possible to make it on minimum wage.
To do so, one must have minimum expectations and minimum expenses.
But, it is entirely possible. In fact, I know many significantly more than minimum wage who were such poor financial managers that they permitted their debt load to put them in a minimum expectation lifestyle.
How do you get out of it? You dig out of it. You take a 2nd job. You fight. You cut your expenses. You retire debts. You sell things you shouldn't have bought.
But...that kind of person isn't going to be at minimum wage for long, anyway.
The Constitution is deliberately and intentionally vague. Plus, as Thomas Jefferson observed, the dead have no rights to interpret the laws. That belongs to the living.
I'm sure that if you did a study you would find that raising the minimum wage does more harm than good and those who are harmed the most by it are those who are on the edge.
Those studies have actually been done, and it the phenomonon you expect has not been observed.
Unemployment figures are also a telling statistic regarding minimum wage. From 1948 to 1955, unemployment of black and white teenage males was essentially the same, 11.3% and 11.6%, respectively. However, after the minimum wage was raised from 75 cents to $1 in 1956, unemployment rose significantly for both black and white teenage males, with blacks bearing more of the burden. By 1969, the unemployment rate was 22.7% for black teenage males and 14.6% for white teenage males.
Economists Donald Deere, Kevin Murphy and Finis Welch found that minimum wage increases totaling 27% in 1990 and 1991 reduced employment for all teenagers by 7.3% and for black teenagers by 10%. A study of the 1996 and 1997 increases by economists Richard Burkhauser, Kenneth Couch and David Wittenburg also found a 2% to 6% decline in employment for each 10% increase in the minimum wage.
In a study published by the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, Couch translated these conclusions into raw numbers: At the low end, he estimated at least 90,000 teenage jobs were lost in 1996 and another 63,000 in 1997. At the high end, job losses may have equaled 268,000 in 1996 and 189,000 in 1997.
Couch estimates that a $1 rise in the minimum wage today would further reduce teenage employment by at least 145,000 and possibly as many as 436,000 jobs. According to the SBA, even among large firms the probability of a low-wage worker losing his job doubles after a minimum-wage hike.
Bruce Bartlett
Who has said anything about paying hamburger flippers the same as master mechanics? All I'm talking about is a floor that human dignity requires - that someone's time and honest effort should merit at least enough to support oneself and one's family.
As one in the middle of law school, you might have noticed that you were one of few who even qualified to get in. You have skills that will result in a higher income.
That is only partially true. I know people smarter than me with more ambition than me who weren't even able to finish college because of finances. I was able to go straight to law school from college only because my parents sacrificed a lot to fund my education. But for those whose parents were unable to make that sacrifice, finishing college is much more difficult. It is irrelevant that they may have more raw talent than I do; I had parents who could afford to help me get the training.
But I sold 4 years of my life to the US military to fund 4 years of college and 1 year of my MDiv.
After that, I did it the hard way. I pastored a church 3 hours from seminary at the very lowest wage scale, but with a parsonage. I commuted that 3 hours 3-4 days a week depending on the classes that particular semester.
Since an MDiv is the longest of masters degrees, I did that for 4 years.
My example means nothing.
But, sometimes the issue is hard work and sacrifice, isn't it?
Your heart is in the right place but you have come up with the wrong solution. The data provided by P-Marlow is irrefutable. Increasing the minimum hurts people and is classic liberal symbolism. Like xzins, I also came from a family unable to send me to college. Instead, while supporting a wife and children, I graduated from NYU with honors after six years at night. Please note that the economic growth in the US is greatest where government involvement is minimum.
Human dignity requires a floor of at least $20 per hour.
It also requires that the employer give the employee at least 4 weeks of paid vacation per year and every national or state holiday off with pay. It also requires that the employer make 100% payment of health care benefits including dental and vision.
Human dignity also requires that the employer provide all the employee's work clothes and shoes and tools. It also requires that the employer not force the employee to work overtime and requires mandatory time and a half for working on the weekends or evenings. How any employer could possibly do less than that for their employees is just unimaginable.
Now why on earth should an employer not be required to pay his employees at least $20 per hour? What harm could possibly be done with such a law?
I had parents who could afford to help me get the training.
No offense, but that could be your problem. I had to work full time while going to law school. I used my own money to pay for my education. Nobody was there to help me out. When I was an undergraduate I was living at home with my parents and I didn't have a care in the world except getting my homework done. I was also a full blown socialist who was more than willing to grant the power to the government to force everyone else to pay for my education and my food and my books, and to tax the heck out of everyone else so that lazy people like me could live care free lives. Back then I had professors who were calling for a minimum wage of about $10 per hour (this was in 1970-72). I was on board with that one. It was only after I got a job in the real world and had my own business and had to live with paying taxes so that other people could waste my hard earned money that I became a conservative.
Wait till you get into the real world. Unfortunately you will be going straight from school to making a lucrative wage and you will probably never have to realize the burden placed upon those who own small businesses to make ends meet with all the taxes and regulations and minimum wage requirements and workers compensation insurance and discrimination lawsuits that the average small business owner has to put up with just to meet payroll. No, you will have the opportunity to have your life handed to you on a silver platter, the unique opportunity to make it to the top using money that other people have earned. And because you didn't have to live in the real world, you can go through life in an ivory tower and make a utopia for the poor using money confiscated from hard working people who themselves get taxed and regulated into poverty.
I worked and raised a family of 5 while going to law school. I had my own business. I worked anywhere from 40 to 100 hours per week while trying to make sure I had time to go to school and to read all the assignments. I had to compete with people whose parents were giving them everything. Invariably those who were given everything, who were living off the hard work of other people, were of a liberal political persuasion. So they had no compunction about giving other people's money away to help the poor. Its so compassionate.
What a fabulous idea!
Let's require that minimum wage be $20 an hour. That's about a $40000 dollar a year income. We'd end poverty overnight.
Let's not stop at $20 per hour though. There is nothing that prevents us from putting every American in a "rich" tax bracket. That way everyone will be equal when we soak the rich.
I propose a $50.00 an hour minimum wage. That will give every American an income over $100,000 per year.
(PS: we should also have minimum vacation, too.....I'd recommend a month to start...working up to 3 months by age 65.)
(PPS: have we mentioned benefits and retirement, yet?)
Why should a person have to work at all? Human dignity requires that people should just have access to whatever things they need to keep them from being numbered among "the poor". People shouldn't have to work for that. They should only be required to work if they want to have luxuries, like second homes and yachts and private jets. Everything else should be automatically provided by the government or by greedy corporations so that no man will be deprived of his dignity.
So instead of a minimum wage, we should just have a minimum salary paid to everyone out of taxes we obtain from the rich and from greedy corporations. Oh, and we'll probably have to have an effective income tax rate of about 90% on people who actually go out an get a job, but I'm sure they won't mind. It is, after all, the compassionate thing to do.
Actually, I was thinking that the $100 grand a year idea has merit.
But, you have a point.
We should require that everyone receive the 100 grand. If they want luxuries, though, they have to get a job. However, the tax rate on income above the 100 grand should be 101%.
We need to give a fresh perspective to anyone who thinks they should be different than the rest.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.