More Thoughts on a Living Wage

[Dave Roberts]

Mark Sandlin has given us all pause to reflect on our country's wage structure.



I would be interested in your thoughts.

[Sandy]

That is an excellent article, and an excellent way of putting it in terms that people can understand. I particularly appreciate his calling out of Wal Mart. I've enjoyed the opportunity to discover alternatives to shopping there in stores that pay their employees better, and are unionized, and have discovered that it is possible to pay your employees well, let them organize and negotiate a contract, and sell merchandise at prices that are competitive with theirs.

[Mrs Haruo]

Well before there was a Wal-Mart anywhere near where I lived, I made it a point to patronize the independent Mom and Pop business when I could, as I was taught by very frugal parents that the cheapest wasn't always the wisest purchase, and the hardware store with the most knowledgeable people behind the counter was worth a slightly higher price if you needed the helpful advice along with the parts to fix what was broken. Except for a year when I lived in a very small town in a rural county, I have always lived in urban areas where there were lots of choices in where to shop for anything I wanted or needed. It's sad to see what happens to a thriving business area in a small town when a huge big box store opens up on the edge of town and undercuts the prices and kills the Mom and Pop businesses.

[Haruo]

... and deliberately schedules most non-management employees for few enough hours that they are not legally bound to provide them benefits, and provides said employees with detailed information on how to get food stamps and Medicaid while at the corporate level working (and spending) to see if those programs can be reduced or eliminated...

[Sandy]

I certainly understand, being in the Christian school business, what I see as the struggle between "fair" and "market driven" wages. Being in a state where educators are paid a fair wage, we have to accept the reality and offer positions that balance out with the fact that our families pay a portion of the cost of their attendance. We incorporate the principle of "equal sacrifice" in hiring teachers, with their willingness to work at a lower wage in order to keep costs low, and parents realizing that we need to pay a living wage and provide benefits. We provide health insurance coverage for employees and their immediate family members at 85% payment of premiums. Most of our non-educational staff are parents who work part time, mainly for the benefit of the tuition remission, and that pay starts at $12 an hour. The only exception to that is our coaching staff, and they are paid a seasonal stipend, but that's not a job they depend on for a living.

The school's leadership over the years has never expressed the politically conservative concept of driving wages down in favor of profits that emerged from the "trickle down" economic theories of Reaganomics. Of course, we're non-profit, but in the Christian school movement, there are those who drive wages down in favor of low tuition for families who can afford to pay more, or as opposed to schools with a sliding tuition scale based on income that requires those who have much to be responsible for giving much. We're committed to continue raising salaries to the point where we believe our staff gets paid what their work is worth, not just what the market drives. And the result of that has come in the form of blessings from God, though I doubt those are important to Wal-Mart.

[ET]

[ET]

I am sympathetic to the fondness which many people relate their experiences with such small businesses, but other than nostalgia and maybe personally knowing the people who run them, I'm not sure exactly what economic benefit "mom and pop" provide. Back in the 1990s and early 2000s we used to take any malfunctioning VCRs or TVs to a guy who ran a one-man repair shop . He has since closed. Why? Because VCRs went from being $200+ gadgets in the early days that often made economic sense to repair when they malfunctioned to being priced at $30 for a cheap DVD player at Walmart today. TV technology evolved to the point that the economics of buying the test equipment to service plasma and LCD TVs made it unfeasible for him to continue in the business.

Yeah, it was sad to eventually find the guy had gone out of businesses after years of repairing TVs and VCRs, but I'm not sure what economic benefit he provided to the community as a whole compared to the entire community having access to an electronic gadget that costs $30 instead of $200 some years prior. Keeping it strictly in the economic realm and not wandering down the path of discussions about materialism, some family can take that $200 and put a second DVD player elsewhere in the house for the kids to watch endless reruns of Dora the Explorer and still have money left over to buy a cell phone. The "creative destruction" of the market is not pleasant at times, but it does benefit far more people than it penalizes.

However, bringing this issue back to the original topic, it would seem logical to me that those on the "living wage" bandwagon would be in favor of big box retailers. They've got (at least in theory) the dollars to pay a "living wage" and other benefits without taking too much of an economic hit. I doubt anything but a tiny, tiny fraction of mom-and-pop stores have those kind of resources.

[William Thornton]

I think being the parent of an economically oppressed employee paid a dehumanizing wage give you additional credibility here.

[Sandy]

The general store (larger than a convenience market, smaller than a supermarket) across the road from my house (yes, it is nice to have it that close) pays its evening teenage clerks $12 an hour. They work part time, from 5 to 9. I'm not sure what the daytime people make, working full time on staggered shifts, but I know that they are unionized. The store is definitely a mom and pop business, owned by the same family since the mid 1970's. Not sure what their profit margin is, but there's no sales tax on food, so their non-food sales generated $50,000 in borough taxes, at 2%. It's a mom and pop business owned by the same family for three generations. Not sure where that falls in the mom and pop category. They are 12 miles from Wal Marts to the east and west, along with several other larger grocery chains, but their prices are competitive, and the service they provide is excellent. The store is always busy. The wages they pay give their employees incentive, and they get a lot of work done, and attract customers to the store.

I'll share another example. When we lived in Missouri in the early 90's, one of our church members owned three Dairy Queen franchises in three small towns. The kids from our church wanted to work for them because they always paid more than minimum wage. As a result, their restaurants were always crowded, because the service was fast and efficient. One Sunday, end of January, we had a heavy snow and only 18 people showed up for church in a congregation that normally ran 200. But the offering that morning was over $25,000 as opposed to a normal Sunday of about $3,200. The people who owned the Dairy Queens were there, and put in their year's tithe check.

Wonder how many mom and pops can do that. Maybe more than you think.

[Bruce Gourley]

ET: Here is a -- persons who are paid so little that they depend on social services paid for by your tax dollars and mine; the federal govt should bill employers who depend on our taxes to support their employees!

Adam Smith, the father of capitalism, placed at the core his economic philosophy that capitalism itself necessitates paying living wages to workers. Smith also made clear that excess profits are un-capitalistic (and destroy nations). I'll take Adam Smith's capitalism over your plutocracy any day.

A living wage: it is a matter of capitalism; ethics; morality; humanity; pro-life.

[ET]

[ET]

[Dave Roberts]

ET, I'm so glad we live in alternate universes. My world has a lot of 29 1/2 hour WalMart employees. It's one of only three sources for groceries here, and it's the largest retail employer. Wages are above minimum. The average starting wage is around $8.00. I never see high-school students working there. A few students who attend the local community college branch work there. Thankfully, they can qualify for Pell Grants to cover some or most of their costs. I've been in the doctor's offices enough to know most of these workers receive Medicaid, and many also receive food stamps. I was with an administrator from a hospital not too far away who was telling me how their hospital wrote off $66,000,000 in unpaid care last year.

In our county of less than $20,000 residents both the scarcity of jobs and lack of full-time jobs mean that over $500,000 per month flows here in benefits for those who do not earn enough to get them off welfare. Within a mile of where I live, there are more than 1,200 hotel rooms. Motels employ housekeepers on a part-time as needed basis which means few of them can make a living wage. At the same interstate exit there are 19 restaurants whose serving staffs are paid $2.83 per hour and then tips are used to make it minimum wage. Many of the restaurants also divide tips equally among servers, busboys, and dishwashers, so your server gets only 1/3 of the tip you leave.

[Haruo]

And the reality is that the Waltons are not paying their fair share of the tax bill for the freebies given to the working poor by the tax-burdened middle class. Or something like that.

ET, you approvingly quote someone who says to be realistic one can't afford the appearance of compassion. Granted it's a fallen world, but how can we afford not to be compassionate, let alone appear so? We who bear the name of Christ?

[Sandy]

I see nothing in ET's post that really has any bearing on the issue. It's like ignoring the point, or dodging the question.

Jesus always put people first. But in modern America, money and profit either trump Jesus, or use him for their own purposes.

[KeithE]

[ET]

[KeithE]

[ET]

[KeithE]

[William Thornton]

I enjoy the back and forth between Keith and ET on this and am informed by both. I observe that ET often takes, quite legitimately and appropriately, some of K and other economic liberals' arguments and exposes them to the sarcasm that comes from the weaknesses of the arguments. Keith might do well work on both his golf game and what appears here as a mild inability to deflect the types of argumentation that work so well for ET. ET can disassociate himself from this, but I think Keith offers some arguments that are folly and are exposed by a nice bit of sarcasm.

I'm planning to read all of Keith's links...just as soon as Fox starts actually discussing points made in his linkfests.

[KeithE]

[Dave Roberts]

When I started this thread, I deliberately did not state any number because I knew the number would become the target. I hoped the conversation would focus on the higher principle of Christian responsibility.

[KeithE]

[ET]